


Neither A Soldier Nor A Gentleman

by Francesca_Wayland



Series: Intermittent, but Sustained [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M, Loss of Virginity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-13
Updated: 2012-07-05
Packaged: 2017-10-31 02:18:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 97,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/338793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Francesca_Wayland/pseuds/Francesca_Wayland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Missing series of scenes from A Scandal in Belgravia. How does Sherlock actually escape from the Karachi insurgents himself, and what happens when an adrenaline-filled Sherlock finds Irene waiting for him in his hotel room right after his audacious rescue? COMPLETE.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Brain and Brawn

" _Run_."

Sherlock Holmes spun away from a shrouded Irene Adler with his talwar sword raised above his head and his arms braced, and he caught one last fleeting view of her lurching forward after a moment of apparently stunned paralysis, tripping over her chador in her shock. It was the first time he had ever seen her physically falter. Immediately he dismissed her from his mind, though; she would be responsible for own exit from this point, and if he ever had a chance of seeing her stumble again (his lips quirked up to the side at the thought), he needed to attend to the fallout. Of course, she would be aided in her escape from the fulminated mercury and magnesium bomb he had planted near the front guard, that should detonate in—

A reverberating boom echoed through the stucco and concrete complex, spilling smoke into the room and sending flakes of plaster down on their heads, to the alarm of the six other men inside.

Ah yes, right on time.

He estimated that he would have approximately 4.7 seconds' headstart due to his opponents' surprise culminating from Irene's flight, his seemingly sudden betrayal, and the explosion, and he meant to take full advantage of the time.

While he was aware of the weaknesses of each individual opponent, this mission was by no means simple; these were dangerous, extremist fighters willing to kill and die for their cause, and they were equipped with aging but nonetheless lethal Soviet-era arms left over from the USSR invasion of Afghanistan: AK-74s, Kalashnikovs, and SKS-45s, not to mention the Soviet answer to a Humvee, the LuAZ-1302.

Meanwhile he was armed with his one talwar sword – and the Marakov in his waistband he had procured as soon as he'd arrived in Karachi. The pistol was merely insurance, though; he intended to disarm the hoard in hand-to-hand combat alone, and the danger of such a proposition (and the entire situation) only heightened his senses and honed his mind. Adrenaline was a beautiful, magnificent drug.

When he had initially entered the dark chamber his first gauging calculation was where Ms. Adler knelt in her ceremonial execution pose, so that he could plot his imminent position, which would be directly adjacent to her. In his mind he immediately mapped out a grid with geometric angles showing the proximate relationship between himself, the four other figures standing around him, and the two men in the military vehicle, in terms of both distance and subsequently velocity, and he only needed one sweeping glance across the room to confirm that each player remained in his or its original location.

Less than 0.5 seconds had passed since the detonation, but the pace of his thoughts lengthened that time, and he had already fully visualised the manner and methodology in which to disable the man just behind his left shoulder, who was the oldest at about 43, in a room full of men in their early 20s. And while 43 may not be terribly old in England, with its socialised health care and long-term home-front peace, this militia commander had clearly spent his years in a harsher, crueler place, and suffered badly-healed injuries that spoke of his hard lifestyle. In particular he held his left arms cradled higher to his chest than his right, and his milky right eye was meshed in a web of scar tissue. Land mine injury. That combined with his slower reflexes due to age made him the ideal starting point.

The commander didn't give up with out a fight. As soon as Sherlock had completed his arc to face him with the sword held aloft, the other man had instinctively lowered the AK-47 and positioned himself in the firing stance - it was only the disruption of the bomb that bought Sherlock the extra time, during which he had stabbed downward and pinned the man's kurta hems to the hardpacked floors with his talwar. Now, leveraging his additional inches of height over the older man, he brought his right elbow crashing down into his left eye, then jabbed him hard between his right 7th and 8th ribs. Practically blinded, and assuredly in considerable pain, the older insurgent hunched inward towards his old injuries with an exhalation of pain, and Sherlock was able to sling the strap of the rifle off his shoulder and swing it onto his own back. Then, almost as an afterthought, he rammed the buttstock of the gun into the commander's skull just above his glabella, and the man crumpled to the floor with a groan, all before any of the other men had reacted.

But now they were; his 4.7 seconds were almost up, and after the disorientation caused by the bomb, the insurgents were realising that Sherlock was the source of the chaos. Angry shouts resounded around him, and the two men in the military vehicle lurched forward in the front seat, reaching for more weapons in the rifle rack. Unfortunately for his adversaries, however, he was at the centre of the room surrounded by them in a ring-like shape, and if they shot towards him, they would surely kill each other. And while they were unquestionably ready to die themselves, and kill their enemy, he knew that they were less inclined—so far, at least—to mow down their brothers-in-arms.

He used his last split second's time of their indecision to recall his next move, upon which he acted at once. Seizing the handle of the sword, he heaved in from the ground and flung it, tip over end, towards the LuAZ-1302, which was indeed military-grade but old, and not anti-assault. The blade crashed through the front windscreen and glass exploded everywhere, including directly into the faces of the two men who had been leaning directly towards it, eagerly reaching for their weapons. The blade narrowly missed them, but they both clutched their eyes and began to scream in agony, and Sherlock could see blood trickling down their faces as a result of wounds from imbedded glass. He grinned a grim, closed-lipped smile, but did not hesitate to move forward with his plan. There was now not a moment to spare, and the strategy concerning the vehicle was only partially fulfilled; he still needed to get them _out_ , and himself in.

Not to mention he needed to reach the LuAZ-1302 uninjured, of course – first things first, after all.

In apparent reaction to seeing the spilled blood of his comrades, the insurgent who had confiscated Ms. Adler's mobile seemed to drop any pretence at prudence, and propped up his rifle, but Sherlock had anticipated this next move as well. The man was young, only in his late adolescence, and his finger had been intently stroking the Kalashnikov's trigger even before he was aware any danger. It was immensely obvious to Sherlock that he was consumed by ideology, eager to prove himself, hungry for combat, and intensely trigger-happy.

Sherlock dropped to the floor exactly as sharp reports ricocheted above him, and he rolled towards the shooter. Simultaneously—exactly as he had predicted would happen in his original risk-assessment—the man who had been stationed in front of the LuAZ-1302 was cut down by 'friendly' ammunition, and fell forward with a gargled shout. Regrettable, Sherlock thought, but no matter.

In fact, he had foreseen the advantage to this event, which he analysed amidst fierce scrabbling on the ground with the young insurgent for custody of the second gun. The other man landed two crushing blows to Sherlock's jaw and chest, but Sherlock barely felt them. He was too keyed up, and had too much invested in observing the developing situation to react to the strikes:

The sound of gunfire was drawing numbers away from the investigation of the bomb, which would hopefully facilitate a slightly less perilous escape for The Woman, and create fewer obstacles for he, Sherlock, once he finally reached the vehicle. Which was, however, proving more difficult as the young man somehow continued to cling to his weapon.

Sherlock grunted in frustration and shoved the downed commander's AK-74 in his possession hard across the insurgent's throat, effectively pinning his wrists as well, and as he heard running footfalls approach, his efforts intensified. He _may_ be able to defeat them, as one against...  _four in total_ , he quickly counted by the new set of three other footsteps, but it was definitely an unappealing thought, and such a scenario significantly increased the number of potential outcomes, not all of which were favourable.

At last his adversary's grasp weakened, and he grabbed the rifle away with his left hand while he sunk a punch into his foe's face with as much strength as he could summon. He noted that he had definitely bruised and perhaps even broken some bones in his knuckle, but he put the knowledge away for future reference; as with the blows he had received, his body was thrumming with too much energy and adrenaline for the pain to truly register. He felt impervious, alive.

Just as the rough hands of the other men finally reached out to clamp onto his shoulders, he grasped the barrel of the rifle and shoved the gun backwards through the space between his elbow and side, so that the buttstock of the gun swung upward with jarring force into the first oncoming insurgent's chin, downing him without Sherlock having even risen from the ground or turned.

Forty-six seconds in total had passed since he had revealed himself to Ms. Adler and the insurgent cell, and a furtive glance told him that the six men that were downed so far were not current risks. This left the two armed men before him, as well as the person who had been operating the video-camera that was to have recorded Ms. Adler's execution.

Although Sherlock could not find any indication that he was armed, he did not intend to dismiss him; while he didn't see a weapon on his person, the loose fabric of his kameez could not obscure the ropey muscles beneath, particularly those of the abdomen and thighs, indicated knowledge of a hand to hand combat system such as... Sherlock scanned his brain, and with gratifying ease, the information came forward:

 _Tae Kwondo...The dedicated fighting style of the SSG, or Special Services Group... special operations force within the Pakistani Army... though not taught in the Army in general._ He scrolled quickly through the SSG's primary tasks: _Unconventional Warfare_ , _Foreign Internal Defence, Special Reconnaissance, Direct Action_ , _Hostage Rescue_ , _Personnel recovery_ , _Special Operations_ , _Asymmetric warfare_ , and _Counter-terrorism._

His musculature, in conjunction with the fact that he kept defaulting to the martial pose of standing 'at ease' prompted Sherlock to conclude that the man was former military. But as such a highly-trained asset, why was he relegated to camerawork? And moreover, why had he apparently rushed for cover behind a concrete pillar when the shooting had begun? It computed with the superficial appearance of 'camera operator', but not with Sherlock's own conclusion. This puzzle was insistent and seemed highly relevant, but to Sherlock's frustration, he had more pressing matters before him.

The vehicle was farther away than ever, and he was facing the wrong direction and surrounded by three remaining insurgents, two of whom were armed and enraged. They bore down towards him, screaming at him in Urdu, jabbing at him with their guns; he appeared utterly at their mercy. And yet, his plan had not gone awry. Smirking slightly, he drew himself up with his hands raised, and slowly turned around.

Adopting a stricken face, he pleaded in (admittedly poorly-spoken) Urdu, "Barai mehrbani... Mhujhey na cheroh?" _Please, don't hurt me?_

The eyes above their black keffiyehs were murderous, and just creased in derision at his words.

"Choop raho, kafar!" one spat - _S_ _hut up, infidel-_  while the other muttered "Londay baz," which Sherlock took as some sort of derogatory offence, although it was one with which he was unfamiliar.

While one of the men held an AK-74 to Sherlock's head, the other yanked the two rifles from off his shoulders and tossed them to the ground, then spun him around and prodded him hard in between the shoulder blades with the end of his own rifle. This forced him towards the rear of the room, in the direction of an expanse of blank asphalt that could serve well as the background to a firing squad. However, Sherlock had noted this the moment he had originally entered the room—as well as its close proximity to his escape vehicle, the LuAZ-1302.

"Phir mar jaa, gashti ka bacha," one of the insurgents sneered - _Y_ _ou're going to die, you son of a whore-_ and though Sherlock's face seemed to blanch, he felt euphoric and smug. _Back on track_ , he congratulated himself.

They had marched him approximately 6 paces—two fifths of the way to the wall, but halfway to the vehicle—when Sherlock abruptly stopped and in one fluid motion jammed the sharp olecranon bone of his elbow into the cheek of the man to his right, into his lower right first molar and premolar, to be precise.

The man clearly was a substance abuser; Sherlock had immediately recognised the symptoms he himself had experienced in his own past: dilated pupils, tremors, nervous tics, and manic energy. Based on their geographic location alone, it was possible that it was cocaine, but the man's physical signs such as the green tinge of his teeth and his pronounced facial asymmetry meant that it could be nothing other than prolonged khat leaf chewing. And besides leading to ulcers, heart complications, and depression, khat—like methamphetamine—caused high inflammation of the mouth and expedited rotting of the teeth. The way Sherlock's foe had been setting his jaw and the manner in which he had spoken (out of one side of his mouth), indicated that he was suffering a painful dental abscess between that set of teeth. A sharp blow that landed directly on the abscess would be excruciating, and debilitating.

As expected, the man shrieked a howl of pain, and lost hold of his gun, whimpering. Wasting no time, Sherlock snatched the gun from his first target and twisted towards the second, who had been slightly caught of guard by the loud noise from his partner. And though Sherlock could not detect any outward flaw that he could exploit, he was a man, and therefore had an inherent weakness...

The other had started to cry out and raise his weapon, but Sherlock shook his head in one curt motion.

"No," he said, in an almost bored tone, before he jerked his knee upward into the insurgent's groin, aiming for the softest part of his anatomy. When the man doubled over with a guttural moan of agony, Sherlock aimed the butt of the gun at his rear parietal bone like a cue stick, and when he jabbed it down, the man fell to the ground, completely unconscious.

The knee to the groin was classic move, and perhaps a little too obvious, Sherlock thought. But effective, nonetheless. In fact, he felt rather pleased with himself, and briefly wondered what John would say about his combat skills if he could see him now... not that he would _ever_ find out about this.

Three seconds had passed, and now the khat-chewer was recovering his wits, but it was too late. He received the same treatment as his comrade, and went down just as heavily.

Panting and covered in sweat, Sherlock straightened and ripped the excess fabric from his face, before glancing around the room in one final assessment. The camera operator was the only figure, besides himself, who was still conscious, but he was still hiding behind the concrete pillar, unarmed and seemingly terrified. Still, Sherlock did not at all trust the man with military training, and if he managed to reach a weapon and start shooting at Sherlock from their current distance and angle, he would have little recourse.

He glanced around the room once more, and saw faint stirrings; it was time to make his final move. He hesitated only for an instant as he noticed a shiny black object laying a metre and a half in the other direction, and bounded over to scoop up The Woman's phone, which had fallen from the lax hand of the insurgent who had taken it from her after she'd sent her final text. Then, not wishing to spend one more moment in the dank and cavernous chamber, he sprinted to the vehicle, flung open the door, and pulled out the man behind the steering wheel, who was conscious but totally incapacitated, and at least temporarily blinded by glass shards. He slid into the driver's seat and felt for the key in the ignition; he would shove the other blinded and moaning insurgent out of the passenger seat once he got started.

But to his consternation, the key—which he had previously seen clearly in the ignition—was missing. And at precisely that same moment, he felt cold metal stab into his side against his ribs.

"Hello," the other man spoke, no longer moaning—or blinded, it seemed. The area around his orbital bones was bleeding profusely, but his eyes had escaped any serious injury. Apparently he had been over-exaggerating his casualties to lure Sherlock into a false sense of security, and Sherlock was furious that it had worked.

With the hand farther from Sherlock, the insurgent lifted up the key and waved it almost playfully, while his closer hand caressed the trigger of his AK-74. "Hello, maa yahawaaay Amrici," he rasped with a smirk, but homicidal rage was burning in his bleeding eyes. _American mother_ _fucker_.

 _American_! Sherlock thought indignantly, before deducing how this had happened. The man must have snatched the key and then repositioned the weapon while Sherlock had bent down to retrieve the mobile. _But how could I have missed his change in position when I entered the vehicle?_ he scolded himself in frustration. _Stupid_ , _stupid_!

It was just one moment of oversight, caused by his eagerness to finally quit the premises, but it was one that could cost him his life.


	2. An Uninvited Dinner Guest

As his adversary dangled the key mockingly, apparently taking a moment to enjoy how he had tricked the imposter, Sherlock's eyes darted around the interior of the vehicle in order to strategise how to escape this situation. He calculated the distance between the two of them, and knew that the length of the rifle barrel in combination with the man's arms was a longer distance than his own armspan, meaning he would have to compensate for reaching the man with additional time—time he didn't have, considering it would take a fraction of a second for the insurgent to pull the trigger. He would have to cause a diversion somehow, then, to buy him those necessary additional seconds. And it would have to be caused by something in his immediate vicinity, so that he could pull it off before the man could react...

Now he glanced at the insurgent, sweeping his eyes from his head to feet, and smiled a hard, triumphant smile. Oh, this was almost too easy. How could he have thought that his life was in danger, only a moment ago? What utter rubbish.

Runny nose, watery and bloodshot eyes, in combination with swollen fingers, the man's slight wince when the key made a jangling sound, and his squint in attempt to avoid the single but bright bare halogen lamp above, all pointed to one thing.

Migraine sufferer.

Even better, a migraine sufferer with _phono_ and _photophobia_. But just as Sherlock was about to lay hard on the horn and simultaneously grab and jerk the butt of the gun upwards, forcing his foe to instinctively look up (only to stare directly into the overhead light), the man's arms went lax, and his head tipped back, one bright red pucker centred in the middle of his forehead. Fatal pistol wound. And not from Sherlock's still-unused Marakov.

Sherlock stared at the body, momentarily stunned, but recovered his wits almost immediately and looked around, with approximately six possibilities flying around his head. _1._ _Had Ms Adler returned? 2. The shot seemed perfect, but had another insurgent risen and been aiming for him? 3. Had the explosion summoned some sort of police force? 4. Had..._

And then he saw the cameraman, who had apparently picked a gun off of one of the unconscious men lying between them. Option number four it was, then.

His blood roaring in his ears, he made a noise of shocked outrage, and barely managed to bite back the shout,"I _had_ him!" He had never disarmed a man by using his sensitivity to light and sound against him, and he was bitterly disappointed that he had been deprived the opportunity. Not to mention, he did not need _anyone's_ help in his own escape.

The man simply shrugged, unfazed, and Sherlock assessed him calculatingly, then looked around and to ensure that none of the insurgents were conscious, or, at least, observing them.

"SSG," Sherlock mouthed with narrow eyes, looking across the body up at the final figure standing. _I was right_ , he added to himself. But he was clearly not former; he was _active_. Embedded on assignment. _Of course_ , Sherlock rolled his eyes. O _bvious_.

The man nodded gravely, then gesticulated towards the exit.

 _And you were going to let them go ahead with the execution?_ Sherlock thought, assessing the man, before interrupting that thought with a slight shake of his head as a realisation slotted into place.

"Source _,_ " he silently enunciated. The agent was clearly his Karachi source's inside contact here, and so he had been made aware that Sherlock would appear like this, and intervene.

The man nodded again impatiently, but then jerked a finger to the sentry guards who had joined them midway through the confrontation, then mimed them calling a radio, and finally made an impatient gesture towards the door. He was clearly stating, _There's no time now. These men will have radioed for assistance after the detonation of the bomb. Go now._

Sherlock resentfully acknowledged that the SSG man was correct, but needed to do one final thing to help ensure the agent remained embedded, in case he should need someone in such a position again.

He jumped out of the vehicle and made his way towards the other man, shouting, "Don't move, or I'll shoot you between the eyes, cameraman. You know I'll do it; you saw what I did to the driver." Sherlock knew that even if any of the men could hear him they probably didn't speak any English, or enough to understand him. Still, he felt that the threat and fury colouring his words were sufficient to get the intent across.

The agent immediately cottoned on and cried, "Barai mehrbani... mujhey samaaj nahen ai, mujheh arngrezi nahi ati! _"_ _Please, I don't understand, I don't know English!_

Sherlock smirked, then mouthed, "Apologies," before he head butted the man so that he crashed to the floor like a sack of bricks.

It was slightly more satisfying than it perhaps should have been.

He whirled on the spot, took one last moment to drag the body of the migraine sufferer (who would never suffer an episode again) out by the arm to let him fall to the ground, before grabbing the key from his hand and leaping back up behind the wheel. He jammed the key into the ignition slot, then, taking two final seconds to familiarise himself with the transmission and gears of the military vehicle, he threw it into drive and peeled out of the room with a screech of tyres. He did not look back.

As he barrelled through wide but dilapidated dark tunnels, heading for the exit, he was satisfied to see that the combined strategies of bombing and getting the insurgents to draw personnel to the chamber with machine gun fire had cleared the other areas, and The Woman was no where to be seen.

The entrance yawned open in front of him, a slightly lighter patch of black that grew bigger as he approached it, and he saw and smelled the evidence of his fulminated mercury and magnesium bomb. There were scorch marks on the concrete floor and walls, an acrid smell of chemicals and smoke in the air, and two unconscious figures were slumped on the ground (possibly dead, but unlikely considering their distance from the detonation versus the percussive force emitted by the bomb).

Then, with a sideways grin of self-satisfied glee, he zoomed through the open gate of the compound, past the empty posts of sentries who were now lying dead or unconscious inside, and onto the long dusty road that lead towards the city centre.

Not the most intelligent of insurgents, he thought with a sardonic laugh, to let not one but two imposters penetrate their ranks. The face covering had helped him, of course, as had his similar proportions to the man whose place he had taken, whose unconscious body was stuffed under a corner bunk in the dormitory room at the opposite side of the structure.

He _tsk_ ed and shook his head slightly, still grinning, although his jubilant expression faded as he remembered his "help." He had to admit that he was in debt to the SSG agent for sharing with Sherlock's source the intelligence necessary to find The Woman, but he was frustrated that he had interfered during the skirmish itself. Perhaps to him it looked as if Sherlock was trapped in a mortally dangerous situation, but he had not been, not at all—far from it.

He narrowed his eyes and squeezed the steering wheel tighter. He would've liked to have taken full credit for the rescue and his own escape, and now he couldn't. And so he felt a strange conflict between feeling absolutely giddy from the adrenaline rush of the successful completion of a both physically and mentally challenging conflict, and feeling thwarted, left short.

He was still experiencing this vexing combination of excitement and agitation as he pulled over to the side of a lonely intersection just outside of the N5 Motorway and pulled off the remaining kurta attire. He retrieved his own clothing from his rented sedan that was parked on a soft shoulder, and quickly changed into a navy blue cotton shirt and dark charcoal-coloured trousers behind the hulking shape of the LuAZ-1302. Though he didn't mind appearing in clothing (or situations) that might cause raised eyebrows, he also didn't want to bring any additional attention to himself at this point. At the very least, he would like to keep Mycroft from ever knowing about this little trip.

He tossed the old apparel into the back seat of the discarded vehicle and simply walked away. In this stretch of road, it was going to be stolen or dismantled for parts before it drew any attention from the authorities.

The change of clothing and car did little to shift his essential mood, however, and his body was still thrumming with adrenaline and a sense of euphoria as he pulled into the dedicated car park of his centrally-located hotel forty-two minutes later.

He wondered idly how long the physical affects of the combat high would last, then recalled some text he had skimmed once of an article about war veterans trying to reintegrate into civilian life, when he'd glanced over at an issue of _The Economist_ that had been left on the seat next to him in a cab (he'd just met John, and the subject had caught his eye). So at least for the night, then. And as such, the prospect of staying in the room the entire time was abysmal; perhaps he would take in the scenery of Karachi 'after dark,' and maybe he would try a little khat, himself. Despite the harmful effects of long-term abuse, he understood that the cathine and cathinone in the leaf provided for a stimulating high that increased alertness and thought-processes, and yet the drug reportedly had a had calming effect, as well. It sounded ideal considering his current agitated state, and he was actually shocked with himself that he hadn't yet experimented with it. It had similar properties as cocaine, and yet was milder—not to mention legal in the United Kingdom.

He recollected his key card from an attendant who welcomed him back with a "Good evening, Mr. Sigerson," then proceeded up the lift. His heart still pounded with what had transpired just the hour before, and he resolved to leave his room to procure the khat leaf as soon as possible. In fact, he was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he almost failed to notice the sign that someone had recently entered his room, and it was certainly not the custodial staff, unless they made a habit of wearing £600 footwear on their rounds.

Almost, but not quite. He paused just as he reached his door, with his arm poised above the room's card reader, and considered the plush blue carpeting with his lips pursed. It had recently been hoovered; the twisted yarns alternated in darker and lighter shades in a striped pattern, showing where the maid had pulled the machine back and forth. The pattern was perfect—except for where it was broken by prints of a UK size 5 woman's shoe, a high-end, stiletto-heeled shoe with a pointed toe, to be precise. Gauging by the depth of indentations and the distance between steps, they belonged to a woman with a weight of approximately eight and one third stones and a height of about 5'4". _The_ Woman.

How quickly he had forgotten about her in his post-fight haze of adrenaline and exhilaration! But of course she had somehow tracked him here. How, though, had she known his alias? He blinked several times at the marks, then drew himself up to his full height and opened the door.

Inside, the lights were lit, and although she was no where to be seen, there had been no tracks leading out of the room, and a quick glance towards the window showed that she could not have exited through there. They were locked from within, and the shade was drawn.

"Ms Adler," Sherlock stated in a raised voice, not in question but in a knowing greeting.

Immediately a figure stepped out of the bathroom, and there she was, the person he had spent hours upon hours tracing across the globe, and the woman over whom he had spent even longer brooding. Longer than he cared to admit even to himself. He hadn't been truly certain that he could even pull this off—there were so many details to consider, many of which were somewhat out of his control—and yet, there she stood, alive and unscathed with her hair down and loose, and her eyes softer than he had ever seen them. And yet, there was determination and defiance in them as well as she regarded him from across the room.

"Hello, Sherlock."


	3. He Says, She Says

They stood there regarding one another, each perfectly still, and the time seemed to stretch out for an age.

Finally, too edgy to remain motionless for one more second, Sherlock broke the silence. "On first name basis now, are we?"

"Forgive me if I'm taking liberties," she answered blithely, albeit in a more forced tone than she'd used back in London, "but after someone saves my life in such a dashing and heroic fashion, I'm prone to drop the formalities."

He ignored her bait. "I told you to run," he said curtly. "Why are you here?"

She gazed at him measuredly for another moment, and he felt his agitation ratchet up another notch. He had just defeated a cabal of terrorists; he did not have the patience to stand here playing Grandmother's Footsteps like they were Year Three primary schoolchildren. He was about to unleash a scathing remark, when she drew closer to him.

She was wearing his dressing gown—again, simple marquise-cut diamond studs, and nothing else, and she smelled of chai. Except for the fact that the tea was chai rather than English Afternoon, it seemed that her time abroad hadn't changed her much, and a fleeting part of his mind, one that he promptly ignored, seemed to whisper that he was glad of it. _Familiarity is comforting, nothing more_ , he dismissed.

Irene had obviously noticed him observing her, and she returned the favour, then remarked, "You seem... rather worked up." She raised an eyebrow to help drive her implication home, but he'd perceived it crystal clearly.

Elevated heart-rate, erratic respiration, slight perspiration... did she think this was his reaction to finding her in his hotel room?

Wrong.

"Well, yes," he drawled, unbuttoning his shirt cuffs with a jerk and beginning to roll up his sleeves. She tracked his every movement, he saw. "I just faced and defeated an entire faction of violent insurgents armed with automatic assault rifles for you, avoiding my possible death."

Irene's eyes widened as the two words 'for you' seemed to hang in the air between them, and Sherlock pressed his lips together, castigating himself. The way he had phrased it—it would make her think his motivations were based on some sort of... sentiment.

He'd had approximately four reasons to make this trip to Pakistan, and playing a hero to her damsel in distress did not rank among them... he was no hero, and she, though perhaps temporarily in distress, was hardly one's stereotypical damsel.

Those were nothing but meaningless, clichéd sentiments anyway, weren't they? _Yes_ , yes. He shook his head slightly with his eyes lightly closed – he didn't want to become distracted by useless corollary thoughts.

When he opened them a moment later, she was still regarding him in silence, and he rolled his eyes and crossed the room past her to deposit his keycard and car key on the bedside table.

But instead of directly addressing what he supposed she could view as a Freudian slip, she said softly, "I'm here in part to ask you the same question that you asked me when you first walked in here." She turned back to face him, looking assertively into his eyes. "Why are _you_ here?"

" _Well_ you see I've booked this room and I intend to sleep in it; it's been quite a long day, as I'm sure you can imagine, and -"

"Sarcasm, Sherlock?"

Why was she so bloody stone-faced and unreadable? he thought, not for the first time, as he scrutinised her.

"Mmm yes, John's shown me that it can prove a rather effective rhetorical device, when used appropriately..." he'd been aiming for airy contempt, but knew that he was falling short. He was still too stimulated by the events of the compound to successfully play aloof.

"It's coming across as deflection."

He scoffed aloud. "You presume."

She ignored his dismissive tone, and moved closer to him again. He could now see that her eyelids were slightly swollen and the tip of her nose was faintly red. She had been crying several hours previously, and the observation made him uncomfortable. It elicited some flicker of ...something... within him, and he shoved the sensation away roughly.

"Why did you come to Karachi? Why did you save me?" she pressed, maintaining unwavering eye contact.

He had another question of his own: Why was she so damnably persistent?

"Those are two separate questions," he pointed out. "To which shall I respond?" He felt cornered, both figuratively and literally, and he didn't appreciate being made to explain himself to this woman.

"They are," she allowed, nodding slowly. "But I think that they have one common answer." Her dark blue eyes were still on his light ones, and her gaze seemed to drill directly into his brain.

"A simple thank you would suffice, you know," he retorted, breaking their eye contact to look at something else, anything else.

" _Just_ ," she said, bringing her hands down hard on the writing desk and slightly raising her voice, "answer the question. Please."

He stared back at her, then raised his chin imperiously. "Fine. I was bored. I needed a challenge. John was away visiting family this week."

The woman shook her head sceptically and crossed her arms in front of her chest, obviously not satisfied with his answer. To his immediate chagrin, his eyes were drawn to the line of cleavage this created, and he felt scornful annoyance towards himself. _Irrelevant_ , he thought.

"Sherlock—"

" _Ms_ Adler—" they spoke at the same time, both sharply.

"Those aren't real reasons," Irene pressed forward. "I want an explanation."

"I've just given you _three_ , all of which are perfectly legitimate," Sherlock snapped. Then he continued in a clipped rush, "I don't know how you're choosing to define the term ' _real'_ in this context, but if you knew me at all—as I think you flatter yourself that you do—you'd understand that for me, there could be no greater or more valid a reason to do _any_ thing than to satisfy my curiosity, cure my boredom, and pursue a line of inquiry to its conclusion. And I'm frankly disappointed that you would be so quick to dismiss ambitions to which anyone and everyone should aspire. I _thought_ you were different—cleverer... more like me." He stepped from her, looking down upon her contemptuously. "Apparently not. Now if you'd please leave -"

"I am grateful, Sherlock," she murmured, apparently trying another approach. But instead of casting her eyes downward as he might have expected her to do at such an admission, she was carefully examining his face.

"Oh, spare me," he said tonelessly. "I know I said you should thank me, but I don't actually want your gratitude. I have that five times a week like the work of the world's dullest clock, from the countless strangers whose cases I solve."

"Five cases a week? I thought you said you were bored."

"They're not mutually exclusive conditions. I have quantity, yes, but not quality," he said in an uninterested voice, although he had to admit that he wasn't feeling uninterested. He couldn't necessarily give a name to what he was experiencing, but his vitals hadn't calmed, that was certain. His pulse was still elevated, his breathing uneven, and he felt almost as he used to, when he'd been on the apex of a cocaine binge.

"But a chance to track a target across national and international borders and datelines? An opportunity to take my skills out of London and try them against a previously untested category of adversary? All under the considerable nose of my dear elder brother? On the topic of gratitude, I suppose that it's actually I who should be thanking _you_."

"So you did track me," Irene nodded, a satisfied glint in her eye.

"Naturally," Sherlock rejoined, looking down on her. "How do you think I came to be here in just the nick of time?"

"That is precisely what I'd like to know," she said, a sly quality in her voice he didn't care for.

"It wasn't for the reason you're thinking, you know," he said derisively, but she merely gazed back at him, and he knew that she was taking in his clammy forehead and flushed cheeks, and recalling his own words to her: "I took your pulse: elevated. Eyes: dilated."

But it wasn't the same thing, damn it. His symptoms could be attributed to the adrenaline-filled incident earlier in the evening, and it infuriated him that she would use the physical responses he had acquired in _her_ _rescue_ as some sort of proof against him, of a fiction she wanted to perpetuate for her own emotional satisfaction.

"Déjà vu..." she hummed, stepping further into his personal space, and this confirmed to him that she was indeed thinking of their last confrontation, and believing that perhaps the tables had turned, and that it was now he who was motivated by that chemical defect known as sentiment.

He felt certain that the tables had most assuredly _not_ turned... but why did her conclusion—and the conviction in her eyes—make him so angry? Another, more detached, and probing, section of his brain questioned: If it wasn't true, why should he care what she ignorantly chose to believe?

"I don't do _this_ ," he said flatly, his arms rigid at his sides.

"And what is 'this'?" she said, mimicking his tone back at him with a slight smirk.

Now he was starting to feel claustrophobic, and far too warm. Hadn't the domestic staff set the thermostat to compensate for Karachi's brutal heat?

"You know."

Her smirk widened, but she seemed to sense that she was pressing him too hard, and she leaned back, withdrawing from his immediate vicinity ever so slightly.

"You'd want to know, too," she said, and he studied her through narrowed eyes, wary. "If you were unconvinced of someone's motive for a particular act, especially one so very extreme as yours, you would absolutely—I quote—'pursue a line of inquiry to its conclusion.' And that, Sherlock, is why I'm here. Because we _are_ the same, you and I." She looked at him from below hooded, long-lashed eyelids, and her lips curved upwards. "In more ways than I think you even realise, I'd venture to say."

He tore his eyes from those lips, but the icy blue gaze that he met from her eyes was no better. Why was it so, so frightfully hot in here?

"And I am unconvinced."

"Oh, for _heaven's_ _sake_!" he shouted up at the ceiling, finally losing his composure. Her persistence, his agitated physical state, and the damn heat were absolutely intolerable.

" _Fine_ , Miss Adler, we _are_ alike. And I didn't relish the idea of losing a mind like yours. Does that suffice?" He was terribly resentful that she'd extorted this confession from him, and yet he felt somehow liberated by his outburst as well.

Yet she just stood before him, unmoved. "There's more."

"No," he stated coldly, now desperate to rein back his fit of pique, although he had the dreadful feeling that he had crossed some sort of boundary, and there was no going back. "There isn't more, despite what you'd like to believe... And this is simply the same strategy you employed when you texted me nonstop, despite the fact that I never replied. You hope that by repeatedly throwing yourself at me, I'll finally succumb to your agenda. That we'll _have dinner_ ," he sneered, his words dripping with derision.

But at this, the woman actually grinned, and Sherlock felt almost helpless in the surge of his anger. Or something. Was it anger? He had never felt this sensation before, and he thought that he was thankful he hadn't. It was unbearably overwhelming, and he felt all his other processes weaken and bend under its encompassing tide.

"But you _did_ reply, Sherlock," she contradicted. "You wished me a Happy New Year."

He stared at her, speechless. His mouth opened and closed but no sound came out, and he could actually hear the percussive roar of blood in his ears. For what he supposed was the first time in his life, he didn't have a ready retort.

"I'm—" he attempted to start, but the words stuck in his throat, which he cleared. "As I said... I'm surrounded by ordinary people. It would be. . .unfortunate if you were killed." He drew himself up taller and resolved that his next words would finally put an end to this preposterous conversation. "But I do not have feelings for you, Irene. I'm _not interested._ "

"I don't believe you... Sherlock," she said slowly, with absolute certainty, and her statement resonated like an indictment.

Dear God, but she was relentless. Making a sound of disgust, he grabbed the key card, and pushed past her towards the door. She could stay here, but he was leaving.

But before he could head out of the room, she spoke again. "I incite a reaction in you, it doesn't take a detective of your calibre to observe that. Something you don't normally feel—maybe something you've _never_ felt. Admit it, there's more to your motive for coming here."

He spun on the spot, and stalked back towards her, his eyes aflame. "It's evident that _you_ need more," he spat, enunciating each word with ice-cold clarity. "I've never needed anything sentimental in my entire life, and I don't intend to start. So _don't_ project, Irene, it's nearly always a fallacy."

She was undaunted, and he was at a loss. His caustic venom was usually deadly, but instead of crumbling, she just blinked serenely at him, the trace of a playful smile still hovering around her lips.

He started pacing in front of her, begrudging the fact that he was so clearly riled up, while she was standing there, elegant even in a man's dressing gown, and coolly confident. Yet he was powerless to stop, and he increased his pace when she started speaking again.

"What is it that you're fond of saying?" she asked, and her smile widened further. "Right: 'When one has eliminated the impossible, whatever remains _, no matter how mad it might seem_ , must be the truth.'"

He stopped mid-step and stared at her. "What? I – what?" he spluttered, experiencing a strange dissonance from how he had originally meant the words when he'd typed them on the main page of his blog (analytically and precisely), versus the context in which she was using them now. In fact he was having a hard time following, which _never_ happened, and though on one level he was aghast, he was also almost too dizzied by the circumstance to fully register it. Instead, the ludicrous words, 'You've seen my website?' floated up, but he shoved them back down ruthlessly. He settled for demanding, "What is _that_ supposed to mean? We haven't eliminated anything."

"Well, no, not 'we'," she demurred. "But _you_ have."

He tried to freeze her with his most callously dismissive 'you're utterly absurd' face, but it was a feeble attempt, and she was apparently immune.

"I have done no such thing," he said flatly, but he dreaded her self-assurance, her calm poise.

"Tracing my whereabouts, tracking me to Pakistan, _coming_ to Karachi, and risking your life to save mine are all gestures that _greatly surpass_ any mobile password pun, Sherlock. And since you deduced my feelings for you based on that code, my dilated pupils, and my elevated pulse—you, the _infallible_ Sherlock Holmes—then it stands to reason that you are... similarly invested." She reached out and grasped his wrist, just as he had done to hers that night in front of his fireplace at 221B Baker Street. "What, I wonder, is your pulse right now? Your pupils, I can attest at least, are as large as saucers."

He jerked his wrist away from her touch, knowing full well that if she were able to measure his pulse right now, it would only serve her purposes and render her even more certain of herself. But his elevated heart-rate was due to anger and to his survivor's high, _not_ arousal, he insisted to himself.

"But we're not the same," he protested weakly. "You can't compare—we're variables _x_ and _y_."

"Oh, but you just that we _were_ ," she practically purred, looking up at him with radiant triumph in her face, and that same sense of fury—or a close approximation thereof, and the nameless something snarled to life within him once more.

She thought she was so clever, so droll – she fancied that she had outwitted the world's only consulting detective, and she was so damned pleased with herself. As if some verbal proof could substantiate anything at all in reference to emotions and sentiment, or hell, even lust. That was the precise reason he avoided such trivia in the first place!

And yet, meaningless as it was, wrong as it was, he could not let her win even at this. The self-satisfaction on her face was intolerable, and she clearly believed her own words. First the bloody SSG agent thought he needed saving back at the insurgents' compound, and now this? It was absolutely unacceptable and _infuriating._

Charged, he stepped into her space this time, meaning to—what?—intimidate her with his height, or get her to recant somehow, he wasn't certain... But instead, when she looked up into his face, the expression of victory replaced with something new and wholly unfamiliar to him, words finally failed him. Frustrated, confused, and utterly out of his depth, he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her towards him, not even understanding himself what might happen next...

"Sherlock," she murmured on an exhale, pressing even closer to him so that their bodies touched from chest to thigh. He had been waging an internal conflict so intense that he didn't hear her words, but he certainly was aware of the physical reaction his body had to the intimate contact. It was indescribable, and new _._

It had been a very, very long time since he had encountered anything that surprised him or granted him novel insights, but he thought that perhaps he had never even experienced anything so categorically different as this.

All the rage, frustration, and especially that indefinable yet unbearably compelling 'something' he was feeling ( _lust? Is this what it felt like?_ ) seemed to magnify and hum as a result of the contact, and it was a more distracting, euphoric, and paradoxically clarifying-yet-disorienting high than that of any plant or chemical he'd tried.

"What..." he tried to articulate, making one final attempt to clear his mind of this strange, almost dream-like state and apply sense to the situation. But when she gazed up at him through her own lust-darkened eyes and her shallow breaths sent her scent wafting over him like opium fumes, any advantage that the rational side of his internal conflict might have had was lost, and for the first time in his life, he succumbed to reckless impulse and physical desire.

With a strangled moan of mingled vexation and longing, he cupped his hand behind her head and drew her mouth up to his as he crashed down to meet her, and their lips came together in a heated collision.

It wasn't his first kiss, but it certainly was the first one that he had initiated himself, and to his shock, this one seemed to matter somehow... Even despite the disorientation caused by this sudden urgent passion (or perhaps because of it), he understood that the awkward pressing-together of lips from his school days could not begin to compare with this exhilarating and almost hedonistic experience.

His heart pounded violently against his ribs as he pressed further into her, backing her up against the wall. He realised that he had become instantly addicted to the feel of her, which somehow seemed to both satisfy that feeling of agitation that had been rapidly escalating since he'd first entered the room, and stoke it further, causing him to crave even more. It was a paradox, and though usually such things attracted Sherlock's interest, he barely registered this one now, let alone allowed it to distract him. Nothing could divert him from this utterly new experience, not when his whole being was thrumming with the overwhelming notion of _yes_ , after an entire adulthood of 'no'.

For the first several moments, The Woman was pliant and soft under his hands and lips; she allowed him to push her backwards, and her mouth yielded to his. But as time passed and he reached the extent of his previous experience, she took over, and he felt an eager thrill. His interest in khat was completely forgotten; whatever part of him that had wanted it was now wholly engrossed in this.

Tilting her head, she parted her lips to him and he mimicked her, reacting and adjusting to the new stimuli with his brand of single-minded intensity, and channelling all the adrenaline and turmoil that he had been feeling into their joining mouths. The sensation of her tongue sliding against his was foreign and yet it was also undeniably arousing, and the haze fogging his rational mind condensed further, leaving only his basest form.

In a moment of feverish impulse, he seized her under her thighs and hitched her upwards, pinning her against the wall and pressing himself in between her parted legs. She made a surprised but pleased purr in the back of her throat that was unlike any noise Sherlock had ever heard before, and it seemed to transmit directly to his growing arousal. He responded with a similar groan, while canting his hips forward unthinkingly, and he was gratified to note that it seemed to have a reciprocal effect on The Woman. Her hands skimmed, alit, and grasped his shoulders, his back, his arms, his head, in an endless pattern, before she locked her arms around his neck, bringing them closer together still.

He vaguely understood that the kisses and caresses of each passing moment seemed to further prove her words to him—about him—correct, but proving her wrong no longer felt like such a priority. In that moment, he couldn't really fathom why this need was so powerful and all-consuming (adrenaline? frustration? curiosity? ...sentiment...?), but it was more than enough that it _was._

And after a night of fighting and resistance (first with insurgents, and then with her), he could now do nothing but give in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like the idea that's floating around that The BBC's Sherlock is demi-sexual (and capable of attraction to women, for my purposes), meaning that he doesn't experience 'primary sexual attraction' as most people do, but that once someone finally has earned his attention and garnered his respect (through 'secondary' factors such as the intelligence, cunning, and wits of "The Woman") – watch out!


	4. Known and Unknown

It felt like drowning.

It was terrifying, he couldn't breathe, and all his focus was concentrated on one single physical directive. But rather than desperately fighting for his survival, the force compelling him forward was the equally innate and powerful commandment of lust.

Her touch, her scent, the sounds she made... they were all the rip tides dragging him farther and farther out away from the shore, and the safety of his old life and understanding. _Here_ _Be Monsters_ , he thought incongruously, but that fragmented phrase was the most his rational mind could do to articulate its alarm, and it wasn't nearly enough to change the course now.

He tightened his grasp under her thighs before turning them on the spot and dropping them both to the surface of the bed, where he stretched out across her body and continued kissing her, trying different angles, pressures, and styles; even in the frenzy of passion, he experimented, and though his sub-operational mind was staggered by the number of variables and outcomes, he was beginning to sense relationships, correlations, and causations.

• _If I (A) stroke her tongue with mine in a certain manner, she (B) arches her body;_

• _If she (B) arches her body, she is (C) exhibiting a pleasurable response._

• _Therefore, if A, then C: She finds that style of kissing particularly pleasurable._

It worked the other way, as well. She had plunged her hands into his thick waves of hair, scratching her nails lightly against his scalp, and he was dizzied by the increased level of sensuality he was experiencing. As part of a final effort to impose order and control upon a situation firmly outside his realm of familiarity of understanding, he thought:

_When she (A) pulls my hair like that, then (B) I experience a significant increase in the rate of my pulse and respiration. When B occurs, I have a markedly pleasurable response. Therefore I must find A enjoyable._

These were the most fleeting and loosely-formed of analyses, however, especially considering his usual standard. He would always remain bound by the way his brain categorised and sorted incoming stimuli and data, but he was too overwhelmed to go any further than cursory observations. There were just so many new experiences, all at once—and they weren't even undressed, yet.

That needed to change.

Without even a moment's forethought or planning, he grasped the tie of his dressing gown—a dressing gown he had untied himself a thousand times but never like this—and sharply yanked it loose.

She gasped at his assertiveness, staring up into his face with wide but approving eyes, and he was vaguely surprised at his own initiative, but his passion was too heightened and demanding to dwell on anything beyond what was going to happen from one second to the next.

He rocked back slightly onto his knees and grasped each lapel of the robe, before pulling it open in one fluid move. For the second time since they had met he was inches from her uncovered figure, but the two instances were practically incomparable. Then, she had been nude but obscured in all the ways that had mattered to either of them. This time she was naked in every sense of the word.

The intensity of the situation in combination with his tremendous attraction to the sight before him stopped his breath entirely, and he felt suddenly frozen.

A flush began to rise along her cheeks and chest from his sustained and unblinking scrutiny of her body, but after a moment she seemed to sense his paralysis, and she reached up to lace her fingers through his. Then, staring pointedly into his eyes almost in challenge, she placed his palms over her chest to cup her breasts, covering his hands with her own next. The instant he made contact with her flushed skin, a sharp exhalation huffed out of him, and the room filled with the sound of his hoarse breathing.

He moulded his long fingers against the curved shapes, and marveled at the firm but supple consistency of her flesh, and at the way the texture of the tips changed and tautened in response to his touch. He flexed his hand slightly, feeling the pliant heft, and she tightened her hands over his, and tipped her head back with a soft sigh. He stared down at her prone form and fluttering lashes, and something about the sight of her—very specifically she—looking so vulnerable and wanton provoked another heavy deluge of mind-numbing but exhilarating lust. In this moment, she appeared so contrary to the dominatrix persona that she showed to the world, and his intrigue at her ability to seamlessly vacillate between the two only added to his attraction.

He didn't doubt that she held elements of both characters in her native personality, but this was a side that he gathered she rarely, if ever, revealed, and she had decided to show it to him.

For his part, he was fully reciprocating; he had never shown this side of himself to anyone, full stop. He had been vaguely aware of sexuality as more than simply a concept to be understood in order to gain greater insights to the behaviour of others, but only insofar as the fact that he'd occasionally had sexual dreams or inconvenient erections. And he had experimented with self-pleasure, but it was incredibly rare—even more so now that he no longer used banned substances. But even during those times, he had never felt such a fundamental, all-encompassing drive as this. His experimentation had been borne of boredom and idle curiosity, and almost any distraction that came along would divert him without any sexual frustration resulting. On a base, instinctive level, he understood that this was something else entirely, and there would be no stopping it. He had indeed crossed a boundary, and it _was_ too late to turn back. Yet not only did he find himself unconcerned with this conclusion, but he no longer even cared that he wasn't concerned.

It had taken approximately fifteen minutes to come to this point—a point so diametrically opposite to his original position... Fifteen minutes to completely dismantle and invalidate his entire attitude on ever having sexual intercourse, heretofore.

An insistent pressure to the middle of his palms made him look down from her face, and he dragged his fingertips over the front of her breasts, before rolling the pebbling flesh between his thumb and forefinger, engrossed in a way that he hadn't been even when cataloguing the many various types of tobacco ash—an endeavour which had occupied his attention for five entire days.

She emitted a light, breathy sigh under his ministrations, then pulled him down for another deep kiss, which turned aggressive, and finally only broke with her pulling away to start tearing away at the buttons of his shirt.

He looked down, panting heavily and gaping in amazement as she unfastened the entire row, then leaned forward to pull the fabric away from his shoulders and over his arms, all in six seconds.

Ah, _there_ was that other, more familiar side...

"I'm good at what I do," she smirked at his expression, and she tossed the article of clothing above his head and onto the floor.

"I've no doubt," he answered seriously, and he was surprised at how dry his mouth felt, and how gravelly his voice sounded. Was this normal?

"And are you working now?" he added, almost as an afterthought. His mental processes weren't precisely operating at normal competence.

However, the subtext was clear – _do you have any ulterior motives for doing this?_ He couldn't see how, but he had long since learned not to underestimate Irene Adler. Even though she had been facing execution today, how many other, secondary schemes might she have had in play before she was captured, and how might he have figured into those plans?

She held his eye without answering for a moment, then responded slowly and suggestively, "If I were working, I'd never do what I'm about to..." Then without warning she rolled them over, until he was on his back and her knees rested against the bedspread on either side of his hips.

"T-ake control?" he asked wryly, though the effect was ruined by his slight stammer. He swallowed and tried for a steadier voice when he added, "I thought that that was the entire point to your profession."

She laughed softly, her eyes sparkling. "Spoken like someone who hasn't yet had enough experience to predict what's coming, and therefore understand the innuendo... I suppose I'll just have to show you what I mean, then."

His eyebrows furrowed slightly over the suggestion that he'd missed something, but any ability he might have had to puzzle out what she meant was lost when she shrugged off the dressing gown and pressed her chest back against him.

How could he have found her figure itself so mundane before, when they had first met at her home in Belgravia? Her nudity had thrown him off, yes, but only because it denied him any cues that would allow him to read her. Then, it simply confounded him, but now each glance at the pale naked skin, slightly flared hips, small high-set breasts, and delicate clavicle flooded intoxicating arousal through him, and he lost himself again in the sensation of their lips moving together and their tongues dueling for that control.

His hands skimmed up and down her back as they kissed, pulled away, and reconnected, and he detected that the passcode to her broken safe was no longer accurate. She had grown thin in her incarceration, and had lost at least a half an inch to an inch at her bust, waist, and hips. Her vertebrae, too, were like ebony piano keys as he traced a finger down her spine. But while he had the transitory thought that he hoped she was able to regain her former fitness, it didn't affect his lust at all; though seeing her body incited desire in him, it was because it was _her_ , rather than the attributes in and of themselves (admirable as they were). He was attracted to her mind and her character far more than anything physical or obvious, and she was clearly still _The Woman_ , despite showing him more of the gentler side he had only glimpsed fleetingly before. And as he had already come to understand, the complexity of her disposition only made him find her more intriguing, and therefore more sexually appealing.

...An appeal that became almost unbearably overwhelming when she rolled her hips against him unexpectedly, drawing a convulsive groan from him. He briefly broke away from their kiss to stare at her, a foreign perplexed expression on his face, and she smiled like a sphinx at him in response. He growled low in his throat—a noise he had never before heard emitting from himself—and reached up again to reclaim her mouth possessively. Still smiling against his lips, she repeated the motion, and this time he instinctively raised his own hips in answer, his breathing noticeably accelerated.

Then, seeming to come to resolve over something, Irene suddenly straightened up, and without warning she reached for the waistband of his trousers. The stakes had been raised. Sherlock's breath wavered, caught, and then continued in its hurried pace, and he regarded her with that same blank, waiting, dark stare. The knowing, hyper-aware expression that Sherlock Holmes had always worn was gone; this was a different animal.

He remained silently watchful as she unfastened the top button, although his irregular breathing was loud around them, as was hers. Then, as she reached for the tab of his zipper, he reached out to catch her wrist, and she hesitated with her hand poised above his waist. He saw that she was wondering if he was having eleventh-hour reconsiderations, but a smile curled up on either side of his mouth, and he assessed her with a very well-used expression—a calculating one.

"Sherlock?" she murmured in question as he continued to smile at her enigmatically, motionless.

"One forty-three," he said.

She nodded once, understanding instantly, and without hesitation she grasped his other wrist with her free hand and counted to thirty herself.

"You're one fifty-two," she reported, with a hard smile of victory. "I win. And I think I have something in mind that might send it even higher..."

Without further hesitation and with a look of focused determination, she tugged the zipper down, and he could first feel cool air through the fabric of his underwear, and then the hot breath of her mouth as she leaned over the undone trousers, and proceeded to peel them down his legs and over his ankles, pausing only to slip off his shoes and socks as well.

This left now left him the most naked he had ever been in front of any woman besides his mother and nannies, who also hadn't seen him like this since pre-adolescence, although any thoughts pertaining to his childhood caretakers were emphatically banished when a moment later she reached up to hook her thumbs under the band of his pants. Instead, he focused on the feeling of her fingers tracing the wisp of cotton fabric down his legs, the fast-paced gusts of air puffing against his skin in syncopation with her breathing, and the nearly-painful thudding of his own heart, both in chest... and elsewhere.

He was now fully disrobed, and while he had never been particularly modest or concerned with his own nudity, he had never been naked in a sexual context; it was just that he happened not to be wearing clothes at a given time. But now, as she took in the view of his body appraisingly from where she was lounged at his feet, he found his simple lack of attire incredibly erotic, and also somewhat dangerous-feeling. Even her gaze looked predatory as she raked her eyes from his chest to his thighs and back up to his face to drill him with eye contact that promised illicit acts in his future. He had never been sexually appraised like this—so openly and by someone whose opinion actually mattered to him—and it triggered a surge of adrenaline as if he were having a flight-or-flight response. And yet, he noted with satisfaction, her pupils were considerably darker than the levels of light in the hotel room necessitated, and her throat jumped slightly as she swallowed the additional saliva that had formed in her mouth. He didn't understand what she saw in his appearance that warranted such a response, but maybe she too just envisioned his (admittedly) brilliant mind when she looked at his body.

She maintained that thrillingly foreboding eye contact as she dragged herself back up to straddle his thighs, and he struggled to keep his own eyes fixed on her. He forced himself to through sheer strength of will, although frankly he was surprised he had any self-control left at all. He had thought it had been lost the moment he took that last step towards her.

In part, he had difficulty meeting her eye due to the fact that he was actually somewhat intimidated by her experience and certainty; he rarely had to engage in something that he hadn't first thoroughly tested on his own terms, and he deeply struggled with elements that were out of his control. He _liked_ being an expert on all things, it was intrinsic in his identity, but being such a, well, virgin, put him at a distinct disadvantage—especially up against someone so knowledgeable as The Woman. He had no personal experience on which to base expectations or evaluate his performance, and it made him feel vulnerable, at her mercy.

And yet, another part of him wanted to shut out her penetrating gaze simply _because_ he wanted to fully absorb every new and different sensation. New was different, and different was fascinating. It was _also_ innate to his personality to pursue 'new', and subsequently investigate such an item or experience as extensively and thoroughly as possible so as to fully classify and understand it.

The 'unknown', and the 'new' – two sides of the same coin, and yet one was vexing and one was irresistible to him.

Not that it mattered, not really. This outcome was a foregone conclusion, and it had been since... since he had gotten on the plane, if he were honest with himself. Perhaps before that, even.

She was leaning above him now, her hands braced on either side of his waist, watching his face, and he wondered what she could read from his expression. The tension from their sustained eye contact was exquisitely unbearable, and his adrenaline was now so ramped up that he could feel his pulse in every muscle pressed against the mattress, throbbing rhythmically through his body. Immediately he forgot what he had been thinking just a moment before—his last, ephemeral instance of any clarity. How had he had any to begin with, with her hungry stare fixed on him? All that he could see was cornflower blue ringed with navy blue, all he could feel was heated and dewy skin on skin. There was nothing else.

"Sherlock," she said, her voice was low and husky, and he could only swallow to acknowledge she'd spoken. " _This_ is what I'd never do if this were just work," she said, referring to her previous innuendo, and he watched as her face dipped, and then was obscured by rivulets of dark hair, which brushed against his stomach and thighs. And as he finally gave into the temptation to squeeze his eyes shut, she proceeded to show him - just as she'd promised.


	5. Shifting Paradigm

The physical sensations were unlike anything he had ever experienced before, and a small part of him was apprehensive that he had found a replacement 'drug' to challenge his hard-won sobriety. He had an addictive personality, and he'd struggled with vice before. Perhaps it had never been _this_ particular vice simply because he had considered it too much of an inconvenience to obtain it—too much investment of time and energy to justify such a seemingly dubious objective.

It had all just seemed so messy and distasteful; one had to deal with the expectations of another person, and the potential emotional ramifications that followed. He had never seen the point to it, not when one could choose the much easier option of just using drugs for escapism, on demand. With _cocaine_ , all you needed was a reliable dealer and the pound sterling.

And yet... surely this could prove more addictive than any artificial pharmaceutical high. The physiological effects were the same—his lateral orbitofrontal cortex, responsible for control, was shutting down and the reward neurotransmitter dopamine was being activated—but the pleasure was so much greater, and it was directly hardwired to his most basic instincts. In addition, there was such an _array_ of stimuli: temperature, pressure, friction, degree of moisture... all which were constantly changing and shifting, so that he had no ability to predict or expect what was coming next. Unlike cocaine, whose rewards depreciated over time as his receptors grew tolerant (causing him to increase his dosage from his original seven percent solution to something much stronger over time), he couldn't imagine becoming bored with this. Somehow, with The Woman acting in the role of the needle and administering, this pursuit didn't seem so objectionable after all.

He lifted his head to observe a view he could have never fathomed seeing, let alone from such a personal vantage point, and she sensed his intense stare and looked up with a raised eyebrow and slight smirk. She maintained unwavering eye contact as she continued, and it felt like their gazes would be permanently locked together; there was no sense of time passing, and he could not look away. He was transfixed.

No detached clinical study of human sexuality and behaviour could have ever prepared him for the intensity and immediacy of this experience, and he vaguely detected dozens of new insights and understandings about previous cases and people's motives attempting to connect in his brain. But in an unprecedented reversal, he actively repressed the completion of any such comprehensions, and let his sensory neurons take over. He could analyse later. For now—

"Oh, _God_ ," he choked, his voice hoarse, and he realised that both of his hands were clenching bunches of bedspread into fists on either side of him. He hadn't intended to speak at all, but it had been completely involuntary, and the uttered oath had been loud in the silence of the room. Irene simply smiled like Mona Lisa, and for a moment he felt faintly embarrassed, yet another novel and new experience. But when she actually stopped what she was doing and sat back on her heels, this emotion was immediately overridden by the sensation of panic, driven by that relentless force of lust.

His brain tried to kick into high function again, to ascertain why she'd ceased her actions, especially when he'd so fully lost his inhibitions and indicated that he was enjoying it. But it was too late, his mind—and by that token, _he_ —felt slow and lethargic, and rather than it being able to call up a comprehensive lists of possible motives, it remained snagged on the simple fact that she _had_ stopped, like a broken slide projector caught on the same image, click after click. _Damn_ , he thought, but couldn't really generate too much worry. He was far more concerned with his physiological, rather than his psychological, distress in the moment.

"Why-" he started in a desire-roughened voice, but she leaned forward and pressed a finger against his lips.

"Shhh," she crooned, in that artificially soothing and sing-song tone he recalled from the end of their first meeting. "You've 'never begged for mercy in your life.' We wouldn't you to start tonight, would we? Not when there are so many other firsts." She leaned in to kiss him, and he responded with desperation, before she pulled back, her smile wider now. "But now you know... I _could_ make you."

Ah. The mental slide projector finally clicked forward.

"Twice," he acknowledged, but with slightly awed disbelief rather than resentment, and her eyes seemed to warm in genuine gratification. She leaned over him and her hair cascaded around them, enclosing them in a hot darkness as they captured each other's lips again. Yet as their tongues tangled together and their breath fanned across the other's faces in hot bursts, something she had said tugged insistently at his diverted consciousness, distracting him.

Impatient with himself, but unable to block out this one thought, he pulled back and looked into her face. "Was that true?"

She was clearly not operating on her usual level either, because she just simply at him blankly, her cheeks flushed.

"You've... never done that at work?" He could barely get all the words out, he was breathing so heavily.

Why did he care? And why did his voice sound accusatory? But no, this was not a night for introspection. A boundary line _had_ undeniably been crossed, and now this was a night to blurt out whatever happened to enter his mind; to act upon whatever impulse he felt in the moment. As addicting as this whole state of affairs was, realistically the circumstances might never be repeated, he might never _dare_ again, so he needed to seize the moment.

She was regarding him with much more lucid eyes now, and when she spoke her voice was strangely steely.

"In my industry sex sells, but I don't sell _actual_ sex, you know. I'm a dominatrix, not a prostitute."

She watched him for another moment, as if daring him to remark or scoff incredulously, but he said nothing, and he just felt. . .what? Not happiness or relief, exactly, but it was difficult to categorise. He was already imprecise at analysing emotions, and with his current handicap, there wasn't a chance.

"And—" she started, but just as quickly she stopped herself from saying anything else, and when he raised his eyebrows in question, she simply shook her head firmly, and seemed to subconsciously dig her nails into his chest. The sharp contact instantly and thoroughly erased any leftover curiosity he might have had about how he felt or what she was going to say, and he lost all semblance of control, impatiently rolling them over so that she was beneath him again.

Without pausing, he attacked her lips with his own again, aggressively pushing his tongue into her mouth, and to his satisfaction she whimpered slightly, which only spurred him on further. Steadying himself on one elbow, he splayed his other hand across her collar bone and then dragged it downward, leaving slight marks of his own, wanting to cover and possess every inch of her skin. He roughly fondled her chest, before pushing his hand downward further, noting the smoothness of the skin at her waist, the softness of her slightly curved belly, the coarse silkiness at the juncture between her legs, and then the crease below.

He didn't know what he'd expected (though to be honest, prior to tonight he'd never thought to have any expectations at all), but he was instantly engrossed in the exotic texture and feel of her, so very alien to anything he had ever experienced on a tactile level before. He traced every contour and recess of her form with his thumb and fingertips, trying to familiarise himself with her anatomy, and before he even realised what was happening she was covering her hand with his, squeezing tightly, and her head was thrust back and her chest heaving. He was familiar on an elementary level of the physical changes that took place as a woman became aroused, but as he observed from such an intimate distance, even the most basic details seemed incredibly nuanced and erotic. No, there wasn't a textbook in the world that could have ever prepared him for this.

He watched in hungry fascination as he made and executed some very rudimentary deductions (the only kind of which he was currently capable) about what increased her pleasure, and when, a few moments later, her grip became like a vise and she arched her back, squeezing her thighs together around his hand, he wore an expression of fierce satisfaction.

When she opened her eyes, they were bright and gleamed with a dangerous spark, and Sherlock found himself slightly intimidated yet profoundly eager for what that look promised. She laced her fingers between his and pulled him forward so that their faces came together, but rather than close the distance between their lips with a kiss, she stared intently into his eyes, and their heavy breaths mingled in the inches between them. Then, slowly and deliberately and never releasing eye contact, she let go of his hand and lightly skimmed her fingertips down his side, making him shiver involuntarily. Still, she continued: down his waist, across his hips, over his pelvic bone, and then—

He uttered a low gasping moan as her warm, sure hand tightened around him, and a dark and hazy mist suddenly surrounded his entire field of vision; all he could see now was a small pinprick of intense blue, and all he could hear was the roar of blood in his ears, like the revving engines of a 757 passenger jet. Every sense, in fact, was dulled, while every sensation, every thought (or lack thereof), and every care was with her hand, and the insanely pleasurable way she was moving it.

The word 'insane' was incredibly appropriate, because he felt like he was going to go out of his mind with lust. He felt as if he might've never been so consumed by any one desire, not even during his most fiending nights in rehab, and though he had never experienced this situation, had never needed to contemplate how he would proceed if he encountered it, he knew exactly what he wanted to do— _must_ do, in fact.

He was sure he had never wanted anything more in his entire life.

If someone—the Devil, for intents and purposes—materialised there, in that moment, and made him choose between consummating his desire and ever receiving another case from New Scotland Yard, he wouldn't have hesitated. Not for one second. After his admittedly brilliant rescue earlier in the evening, he was certain that he was still the "great" Sherlock Holmes, but now he also knew that he was a man who was just as _fallible_ and susceptible to the most basic human instincts as any other man.

Suddenly he craved the contact of her mouth again, and he closed the small distance between them to capture her lips possessively. Unconsciously he mimicked the patterns she was setting below, and became increasingly more passionate as her grip quickened its movements. Then, just as he didn't think he could last another minute under her ministrations, her hand relaxed, and she dropped her knees apart so that the entire length of his body was pressed against hers, and their hips aligned.

They both caught and held their breaths as the implication of the moment came crashing down around them, but when she shifted slightly so that she brushed up against his sensitive flesh, he expelled it all in a loud gust. His heart rate ratcheted up yet another degree, and he felt dizzy and disoriented, yet somehow anchored by the intensity of their eye contact. There was only one thing that could ameliorate this, he knew, and with a compulsion as ancient as humankind, he grasped himself in one hand and lifted her knee with the other in one fluid motion.

She stared up at him, her mouth pressed into a line and her nostrils flaring from fast-paced breaths, but she didn't look upset. She looked (again he struggled to label the emotion). . . anticipatory, and fiercely aware and _present_ —much more so than he was, in fact. There was something more in her expression, too, but he wasn't sure that even on his keenest and most observant day he would have been able to place it.

He remained poised above her for another moment, every sinew and synapse in his body screaming for him to complete the act, but still he paused, looking into The Woman's eyes and waiting for a signal that he didn't know, but understood that he would recognise when he saw it.

It came when she grasped his triceps and lightly pressed her thighs against his sides, and without thinking or hesitating any further, he pushed his hips forward until they were fully flush with hers, and he could feel their heartbeats pounding against each other in rapid syncopation.

* * *

For a moment he actively tried to process that the thing he previously, unconditionally "didn't do," was actually occurring, but with all the astonishing sensations that were overwhelming his physical and mental processes, he was finding it next to impossible comprehend. Even harder to fathom in the moment were all his reasons against ever exploring this (now undeniably real) component of his being, though they had seemed perfectly rational before. He had rejected his own sexuality, but for what? To what end?

He withdrew experimentally and thrust again, and she tightened her grasp on his arms and smiled lazily up at him, breaking her previous look of deep concentration. Her expression sent spikes of adrenaline throughout his nervous system and he had a fleeting moment of clarity. He hadn't wanted this because he hadn't met _her_. She, to quote her himself, 'incited a reaction in him, something he didn't normally feel—maybe something he'd never felt.'" How accurate her words had been.

The key, he knew, was equality. He had never met someone, a woman included, whom he felt rivalled him, someone he could esteem as an equal. How could he ever be interested in someone he didn't respect? How could he want to be with a person who wasn't a challenge? She represented all those things—in a beautiful, sexually-appealing package, he had to admit, although that fact still remained secondary and overshadowed by how much her mind attracted him.

But yes, a very attractive package, he thought as his pupils dilated to take in her face: the bright blue eyes, long dark eyelashes, symmetrical bone structure, graceful, slender throat, glowing, rosy cheeks, and white teeth. For the second time that night he marveled at how the shift in his perception of her intellect had so radically changed his assessment of her physical self.

A hand reached up and lightly traced a shape along his jaw. "Bruise," she stated simply, and he nodded at the appropriate time but had barely heard her.

He was far too preoccupied with the fact that she had simultaneously wrapped her legs around his waist, abruptly altering the angle at which they came together. This shift sent new and different tremors of pleasure through him, and his mind was blissfully blank.

Her eyes seemed to flicker with understanding; she had undoubtedly seen countless men go into this identical trance. Even if she didn't actively engage in any type of intercourse, there was no question that many men did get sexual gratification from the humiliation and degradation that she provided.

She smiled seductively up at him and then tightened her legs while slightly lifting her hips to meet his. _This_ captured Sherlock's attention; he uttered a choked cry and strained forward at the waist to grasp her hands in his and capture her mouth, desperately needing more contact. He kissed her forcefully, and although his lips began to feel bruised, the discomfort—like the pain from the injuries he'd accrued during the fight—was meaningless compared to the other physical stimuli he was experiencing in the moment.

They didn't speak again, at least not verbally. Physically, however, they continued the same dialogue they had been exchanging since they met. As soon as he had become more assured in his actions and became almost smug with himself, Irene subverted his new-found confidence by pushing him onto his back and firmly taking control. This left him at a loss, although only temporarily, and it was certainly not to his detriment. He even allowed himself to enjoy it—although there really wasn't an alternative; his automatic physiological responses were the true masters, now.

Their unyielding eye contact spoke eloquently as well as they moved together: approval, challenge, temporary dissatisfaction, eagerness, and even trust. His eyes widened at once when he read that in her face, almost as much from the fact that he had been able to actually discern the emotion as from surprise at seeing her direct it towards him. Had she seen it mirrored back at her? _Doubtful_ , he thought, but he wasn't certain.

It had happened when he'd grown impatient with his passive role below her, and he'd resolved to take back some initiative and shift positions. Curiously, the trust in her eyes flashed the exact moment when he'd expect derision: when he'd rather clumsily surged forward into a sitting position with his arms tight around her waist, nearly toppling them both sideways. It _had_ been ephemeral and it was almost immediately replaced by another look of flirtatious defiance, but he had seen it.

But almost as quickly as he'd noted it, the observation faded, along with almost every other semi-rational thought. She was doing mysterious yet magnificent things to him with her internal muscles, and scraping her nails down his chest, making him feel as if the locus of earth's gravity had shifted and magnified to where their hips joined together with increasing urgency.

In fact, the drowning feeling was coming back, and he reflexively pushed her back on the bed, tangling their legs and pressing her down into the mattress, without giving a moment's forethought to do so. First his mind had been lost, and now his body was no longer his own; his limbs and movements were animated by this overwhelming, unyielding force. All his ineptitude had faded away, and he now moved over her with smooth, intense and precise grace.

She seemed to be surrendering to a similar tidal wave. Gone now was her expression of presence and watchfulness; her eyes had lost their sharpness and they were staring unfocused, looking through him rather than into him. Not only did she not seem to mind as he blindly groped at her chest, then her shoulders, then clasped her hands in his again, but his ardency seemed to push her further. Emitting a sound he'd heard dozens of time from his mobile but never in person, she buried her face into the straining crook of his neck, breaking eye contact at last.

Without that single grounding connection, he lost all sense of reality and his basest instincts reigned unequivocally. There was no past or future, only the immediate present, and there was no world outside this humid Karachi hotel room; his entire universe was scaled down to include only himself and The Woman. And every need he'd ever considered vital in his past—a dose of cocaine, a new case, a compelling experiment—was trivia compared to this imperative.

Wearing the snarling mask of a man possessed—which in many ways he was—he released her hands to grab her under her knees and press in even closer, and she immediately threw her arms around his neck and her locked her ankles around his back, clutching onto him as if he were a life preserver.

But it was no use; he was going over the edge and he would only drag her with him.

He clenched his eyes shut and pressed his open mouth against her shoulder, breathing harshly through his nose, suspended in torturous rapture at the precipice. Then, after what seemed like an eternity of ever-building, sweet anticipation, it was the woman who spun them off into the abyss.

She suddenly tensed, every muscle contracting tightly around him, and she lifted her head from the crook of his neck to toss it back with a choked, breathy moan that sounded suspiciously like his name.

He couldn't be certain, though, because her convulsive movements had been too much for him to take, and his tension finally, abruptly shattered. A surging, all-consuming pleasure engulfed his entire body, blooming from his centre and radiating through every muscle and limb, leaving him gasping for oxygen. Yet even that most fundamental physical necessity was secondary to the inexorable force pulsing relentlessly through his being.

Then, as quickly as his muscles had contracted, they suddenly and completely relaxed, sapping his last reserves of energy and strength. Gasping, he collapsed onto the bed next to Irene, where he felt as if he had had been poured like molten lead.

Next to him, The Woman was equally breathless, slack-limbed, and shining with sweat, but her eyes burned brightly with that same emotion Sherlock had seen before, but had been unable to name.

He was still unsure of most of it, but there was one facet of her expression that he _did_ fully recognise.

Victory.


	6. Pillow Talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter features two cameos by Imaginary John in the role of Jiminy Cricket (ie a conscience)!

It took a very long time for him to regain any semblance of awareness or cognitive function, and it was even longer before he could summon enough energy to move his body. His muscles felt like agar and his bones felt as heavy as plutonium.

In his arms she felt equally heavy, a dead weight, but the sensation was not altogether unpleasant, and he sensed that he could easily slide into a deep coma-like sleep in this position. Perhaps when he awoke she'd be gone, and he'd have regained his natural sense of acuity after this temporary madness.

He briefly speculated whether or not he wanted that, but soon felt almost too overwhelmed by the very mechanics of thought, and so he abandoned the effort.

A moment later, he felt the mattress shift as Irene rolled away from him, and when he heard a familiar rustling sound, he finally became curious enough to move, even if it was only to raise his head slightly. He peered across the expanse of coverlet to see her nude form leaning over the edge of the bed, and judging by the sound, she had found the packet of Dunhills in his right trouser pocket. She straightened with a single cigarette clasped between her index and middle fingers, and his lighter enclosed in her palm.

"Gimme," he said, extending his left arm and opening his hand, and though it wasn't the most articulate thing he'd ever said, it was the pinnacle of eloquence in his mental state.

She raised one eyebrow in amusement, but passed hers along to him before reaching down to extract another for herself.

She lit them and they both inhaled deeply, and the silence stretched between them.

Finally, unable to let a quiet moment pass without putting his proverbial mark on it, he uttered, "Well, that was certainly degrading to all involved."

The moment he spoke it, he mentally cringed and rebuked himself. Why on earth had he been compelled to say such a thing? In fact, he hadn't found it degrading in the least—perhaps if anything he had developed a healthy respect for the power of sex. He pulled deeply on the cigarette in agitation, and felt his thoughts clear ever so slightly.

What would John say if he were here (as unappealing as the thought of him seeing Sherlock like this was)? That Sherlock was simply attempting to create some distance after the sudden and unanticipated, yet intense, intimacy that had just transpired? . . .Restoring 'the armour' due to fear of being vulnerable?

He stared at the glowing tip of the Dunhill, blinking furiously: at his rash, callous (and worst: inaccurate) words, the _considerable_ irritation of knowing that he was in the wrong, and the difficulty of parsing through such ambiguous data as emotion—even his own. Strike that. Especially his own.

Yet besides a subtly deeper drag on the cigarette and a slightly cool tone, Irene didn't seem fazed.

"Well, I _am_ a dominatrix. Degradation is my stock-in-trade." She blew the smoke out with slow deliberation. "Now you can claim to join the proud ranks of MPs, royals, captains of industry, and other assorted statesmen who have also enjoyed that particular service."

"Irene. . ." But despite the blessed Dunhill, his mind was still labouring against its post-coital stupor, and he realised wryly that like all pleasurable things, there were undesirable side effects even beyond those immediately apparent. Yet perhaps even on multiple nicotine patches he'd be speechless in such a situation.

She didn't appear to be listening, and he took another fortifying drag of smoke.

"You enjoyed it," he observed, making an (inelegant, he knew) attempt to re-emphasise the fact that she had been pleased—literally—only moments before. But even he could hear how it came off as arrogant and dismissive instead.

A beat of silence passed before she stated, "Yes," then took another long pull on the Dunhill herself. Her voice sounded smooth and uninflected, but he knew that she begrudged answering him at all. He had disappointed her. "Sometimes it can be liberating to suppress all the ever-industrious mental processes and simply. . . exist. Don't you find?"

She turned her eyes on him in detached query, but the blue was icy now, without a hint of the heat they had held only moments before.

"I wouldn't know," he said automatically, feeling strangely empty now.

"Oh I don't think that's true," she said evenly, turning back to face forward. "Maybe you haven't had sex before, but surely with a mind like yours you've at one point or another experimented with a way to slow it down, calm it?"

He didn't answer, but he knew that she correctly took his silence as admission.

"It _was_ your first time, wasn't it?"

The tenor of the room was starting to make him uncomfortable. "You know the answer to that."

"I want to hear you say it," she said, her tone completely flat.

"Why?" he demanded, his voice coming out angrier than he had expected it to. Maybe the sex itself wasn't degrading, but this line of inquiry was and, furthermore, it was meant to be. Punishment? Of course.

"Why would that give you any gratification?"

She elected not to answer, and her face was a mask carved from marble.

Once again, John's voice intruded: _You're_ _going to have to say it_. _Just_ do _it, you know this awkwardness is your fault. You were an arse, so fix it: apologise._

Sherlock eyebrows creased together, and he moodily inhaled the Dunhill's rich smoke, internally struggling. As he saw it, he was in a Catch-22. If the sex had been merely a product of his combat-induced adrenaline and wounded ego, and he had exploited her availability and emotional regard for him, it would have indeed been degrading to both of them.

Inversely, to confess that it was not actually degrading, would be to therefore admit that the sex was about something intangibly "more"—something personal, and to concede that she had been correct in her claim about his regard for her.

But the fact remained that he had not found it debasing, which by his own reasoning meant. . .

At once his eyes widened, his heart gave a massive, painful jolt, and he blanched, his clammy skin suddenly feeling deeply chilled in the warm room.

His brain immediately flew into the most hyper-drive possible under the still less-than-ideal conditions of post-coitus, and he reorganised his hypotheticals into declarative statements, which fell on him like bombshells.

**The fact that it was not actually degrading meant that the sex _was_ about something intangibly more—something personal. **

**She had been correct in her supposition of his regard for her.**

_How had this happened?_ he racked his mind incredulously. Irene Adler had gotten the best of him, in the end. It had been the longest of long games until now, and it had had nothing to do with money, or crime, or fame, or power (except between the two of them, of course), but she had won. _My God, she had won_.

He gaped at her in astonishment as the twin revelations of his feelings for her, and her consequent victory resonated around him. The former was so painfully evident now, especially in light of everything that had rushed through his head as they'd consummated their relationship. As sex-addled as his mind was, how could it have taken him this many minutes to abduce the obvious?

No wonder she was angry, he marveled, taking in her profile. She knew that she had won, but he wasn't giving her the satisfaction of admitting that _he_ knew it. In the moment, he had foolishly believed she was simply self-satisfied that she'd finally gotten him in bed. How simplistic of him; it was about so much more than that.

Plus, he acknowledged as an afterthought, perhaps part of her really had been hurt by his impetuous words.

Absurdly, the now-familiar sensation of lust stirred inside him again. He took another, even deeper pull on the cigarette, but this time it was with resolve.

"Irene." His voice sounded stronger, despite his absolute shock— _good_ , that was good. He felt bolstered by the fact that for the first time since he had stepped into the hotel room, he fully understood what was going on.

She must have detected something promising in his tone, because she quickly turned her head and darted a gauging look into his eyes. He didn't know what she saw, but her eyebrows slightly lifted.

"I apologise. For what I said." He pursed his lips, then continued, "The truth is, it all went. . . surprisingly well."

"Not so surprising, I don't think," she immediately contradicted, but the detached mask of her face seemed to soften somewhat.

He inclined his head to her in concession. Maybe if he had been as aware of the long view himself, as she had clearly been, he would have had the privilege of sharing her foresight.

He had always known that they were equals in most ways, but in the area of understanding human emotion—his included—she had proven who was the superior mind. _She 'knows' what people 'like_ ,' Sherlock mused, and she had been able to read him as surely as all the others, and certainly better than could read himself. Yet rather than make him feel common, it only instilled more respect for her in him. How had she known?

And by that token, had she suspected all along that he would attempt a rescue in Karachi? He suddenly saw with great clarity that she had. A further realisation stunned him: he had been able to find her precisely _because_ she had planted breadcrumbs, so skillfully that he hadn't even detected her hand in it. _Astonishing_. It had been a game with potentially deadly consequences, but she'd won.

"Perhaps not, no," he agreed, a slight, impressed smile playing on his lips, and her eyebrows crept up even further as she returned his smile.

"You enjoyed it too," she recalled, and he felt his face heat at the memories, both cognitive and sensory.

"Yes—" he admitted after a moment. It was pointless to lie; it was obvious that he had relished the experience immensely.

"Sherlock—" she started, her voice breathless.

But he had not finished. Almost immediately after he'd finally grasped that he felt some sort of emotional response to her, a response that meant that he desired sexual intimacy for the first time ever, he had also realised that it truly was the liability and handicap to his work he'd long suspected it could be. He had always known sentiment was incompatible with his lifestyle, and the fact that he was now actually experiencing it made that no less of a reality. And so:

"—But it won't happen again. It robs me of all perspective and judgment. It's dangerous."

He had meant his words very gravely, but to his dismay, they seemed to have the opposite effect on Irene. Rather than dishearten her, they caused her eyes to sparkle, and he realised a fraction of a second too late that he had just revealed his new and now greatest, it seemed, vulnerability. She had penetrated his defences once already, and that had been before he knew how intoxicatingly addictive the experience was; he would be even more susceptible to her in the future, and she was all too aware of it.

Even more dangerously, she clearly took his solemn pronouncement as a challenge.

He tried to appeal to her rationally, though he knew with dread (although a sort of titillated dread, he acknowledged) that it was too late.

"Irene, the only thing that separates us from, from _animals_ is our capacity for rational thought. I won't sacrifice the efficacy of such an ability for a few moments of physical pleasure." He could tell that she wasn't finding his argument the least persuasive, so he escalated with a contemptuous ad-hominem attack: "I don't so readily relinquish that as _you_ seem to."

Immediately her playful smile faded. " _You_ presume, now," she said softly, and surprisingly introspectively, which hadn't been at all what he'd expected. He'd been waiting for an impassioned argument in favour of being animalistic, but his own words echoed back to him made a much more fascinating response. How was she able to so constantly surprise him?

His mind raced, trying to understand her meaning, but he couldn't make any sense of it. He presumed, _what_ , exactly? She was clearly a very sexual person, who immensely enjoyed that element of her character and occupied it fully. And she had already admitted that she found sensory-only experiences liberating. What had he _presumed_? His forehead creased and he cast her a questioning glare, but she took no notice; she was stubbing out the butt of her cigarette.

"Regrets?" she asked when she turned back to him, interrupting his unsuccessful analysis.

He looked up in quickly and opened his mouth to answer, but closed it again when he found that he sincerely did not know how to respond to the question. It was a deceptively complex matter. But overall. . .

"No," he decided, pressing his own finished Dunhill in the ashtray on his bedside table. Then he declared, "I don't do regrets."

"Not even in this case?" she suggested, picking up on his subtext.

His lips twisted to the side, and he pondered the issue again.

"Even if I were to regret other things in my life—in my past, I would not regret this," he finally stated, and the proclamation resonated truthfully within him.

"Why?" she asked, in a tentative tone that sounded strange on her lips. She clearly knew she was delving into the emotional equivalent of a great untamed wilderness.

He debated even considering what she asked, let alone answering, and decided against it. He had already completed more personal introspection in the past ten minutes than he had in perhaps his entire post-adolescent life, and he couldn't put his conflicted and complicated reasoning behind the "no" into words. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.

Instead, he met her question with a query of his own. One that would hopefully be so different and diverting that it would completely deflect from the fact that he couldn't answer hers.

He turned to her with feline-like speed and grace, and he was gratified to see that her expression was startled.

"How did you find me?" he asked, his each word like rapid-fire gun report. "And so quickly, with no resources like money or a phone."

She blinked then assessed him calculatingly, and he knew that she too was debating whether she should answer him, or if she should hold him accountable for his last question.

Then, suddenly, she smiled. It was her coy, entertained smile, and Sherlock felt as if he'd been reprieved. This was familiar territory; the matter of how she'd managed to beat him back to his own hotel room without any advance intelligence was a purely cerebral matter, with no potential shades of emotional ambiguity that he could discern. Definitely his area.

"Mm, shall I tell you?" she grinned. "A woman likes to have _some_ secrets, after all."


	7. Q & A

He waited approximately three seconds, before he gave in. "Irene, I'm not accustomed to having to ask for an explanation, so since it happens so rarely, please humour me." He had even added the magic word, John would be pleased.

She shook her head in mock disbelief. "I am a bit surprised that you're not the one explaining it to _me_. I do know how you love to show off. Not up to your usual standard, it appears?"

Taking this as the challenge it so clearly was, he quickly scanned his memory for clues, but to his frustration the time between when he had commandeered the military vehicle and when he had realised she was in his hotel room was a blur of adrenaline (not unlike the past hour). The only mental image he could conjure was the sight of the long dusty road in the beam of his headlights as he drove towards the city. Damn it, he couldn't tell her how.

Taking in his blank expression and narrowed, darting eyes, Irene laughed, and it was a charmed, girlish sound. "No? How remarkable."

"Please," he repeated, and her face glowed with a spark of something. Excitement? Satisfaction? He couldn't tell, but he got his answer almost at once.

"All right then, since you're begging. . ." she murmured pointedly, leaving the unsaid words ' _for the second time'_ to hang between them, and he actually felt himself colour, more from the sudden feelings of arousal that the reference stirred, than embarrassment.

"It was simple, actually," she was saying, moving on briskly. "You weren't difficult to track given that I knew to look for signs."

He snapped back to attention and his eyes flicked to her face. "I could say the same thing about you," he said wryly, grateful to be diverted from where his thoughts had begun to meander. "But then, that's how you intended it, isn't it?"

She almost completely ignored his remark; she didn't look at him or answer, but an eyebrow twitched in response to his rhetorical question.

"I was nearly caught at one point," she said, clearly starting from the very beginning, just after when he'd told her to run. "Rifle reports were coming the chamber where I—where you were, which summoned several guards down the central corridor. I managed to hide myself behind a concrete pylon just in time. . . It's fortunate that it was dark, I was wearing black, and that they were focused on the gunfire. When I made it out of the compound and up to the sentry posts, I was able to take a rifle off of one of the men who had been knocked unconscious by your bomb—nicely executed, by the way."

Sherlock nodded his head once in acknowledgement, though internally he was uncomfortable with hearing how she'd nearly come to harm. His preplanned diversions of the bomb and the gunfire _had_ been designed to facilitate an easier escape for her, but at the time he had considered them to be merely two strategies in a complex plan of which only he was capable. It had been all about him, he'd thought: _his_ relish over such a challenge, the validation of _his_ ego if he succeeded, the cure to _his_ boredom. Securing the rescue of an impressive mind such as The Woman's was merely a peripherally favourable outcome, though not the main objective. Or so he'd told himself.

Yet now he understood with total clarity that it was exactly the reverse. All those incentives had merit, to be sure, but they were not the main impetus for coming to Pakistan. She was.

 _Not that my sentiments change_ anything, he reiterated to himself sternly. It was in his character to want to thoroughly comprehend various causations and consequences, and so there _was_ value in him understanding the nature and extent of his feelings, but that didn't mean they had to alter his life in any way. _I live without other temptations I've known, and I can live without this._

This entire thought process streamed through his brain in two seconds, so that by the time he had reaffirmed his stance on his feelings and tuned back into her words, she was still at the start of her explanation.

"I was able to conceal the gun under my cloak and then I took a position by the side of the road, pretending I was injured, waiting for a passing motorist to assist. I knew that at any moment someone could stop who knew about what went on in the compound—knew about me—and sympathised, but I was prepared and willing to use the weapon in that case, and it would still provide me transportation. Fortunately, practically right away a young teenager on a moped pulled over. I think I gave him a nasty fright when I threatened him with the weapon, poor thing. At that point, I didn't know what to do or where I was going to go; I didn't even know if you would survive, though I believed that you would. So—"

"Stop," Sherlock said, putting up a hand as if he were hailing a taxi, and Irene immediately went silent.

"Of course. The car," Sherlock said in an even tone, the answer completely obvious once he worked backwards through several dependent variables to realise the course she must have charted after her escape; he was irritated that it hadn't occurred to him sooner, though he knew he wasn't operating at his usual levels at this moment. "Out of all the roads that lead from there—the two paved and six unpaved, which all network out to over a dozen more—you must have chosen the one that heads towards the M5 and the city; it's clear now. You _should_ have gone towards the sea, though. Coming towards the city was the obvious choice, and one I hadn't expected you to take. It was foolish, that's the direction they would've guessed you'd taken and you could have been pursued."

But instead of looking contrite, she looked excited, which he guessed stemmed from the fact that he'd successfully guessed which road she'd taken - she understood that it meant that he'd already figured out the rest in order to lead him to that conclusion.

"I felt confident that I had enough of a head-start," she rejoined, her confirmation of his induction implicit. "And don't forget that I did have the rifle. So, what _about_ the car?" she added, her expression anticipatory.

"I say you must have selected that road, because that's how you would have come across. . .which is how you knew. . ." he murmured.

"Yes?" she prompted eagerly, and he raised his eyes to her and spoke in a ringing, declarative tone.

"As you traveled the most expedient route towards the city, you came across a conspicuous car parked on a shoulder. It was a late model sedan, clearly a rental, and a lack of road dust meant it hadn't been parked long. Not to mention that it was still in one piece; metal thievery is rife there. But what _was_ such a car doing along such an impoverished country road as that? you wondered, almost immediately knowing the answer."

Irene grinned and nodded. "It couldn't have been more obvious to me that it was yours than if it had had a personalised license plate or a bumper sticker reading _I 'heart' Mendelssohn_."

"So," he continued, barely pausing as she commented, "looking for confirmation but moreover, clues as to the location of my Pakistan base, you pulled over to examine the vehicle, and a carpark ticket was fastened on the inside of the windshield. It gave the name and address of a hotel in Karachi and the surname Sigerson. Any doubt that might've caused you, however, was erased as soon as you saw a pair of dark trousers, folded over a navy shirt in the passenger seat. Having a discerning taste in apparel, you would have recalled my particular brand and style preferences, and immediately recognised the clothing as mine."

"Yes, you do seem to have especial loyalty to a certain Savile Row tailor," she agreed, and Sherlock could tell that she was struggling not to make a remark regarding clothing, or lack thereof. Instead she settled with: "And this exact cigarette packet was protruding from one pocket." She gestured to the now nearly-empty pack lying on the side table. "I take it the smoking is new?"

"The smoking is old, and new. Sustained nicotine habit, varying delivery methods." He switched gears without missing a beat. "Then, once you arrived here, you simply asked for Mr. Sigerson's room number. . .

"Impressive," he added a moment later, looking her over in favourable appraisal.

"Thank you," she smiled. "And all correct, of course. You've restored my faith." She placed a quick but sensual kiss on his shoulder, and though he certainly registered the feel of her lips on his skin again, and the flesh there tingled a little too pleasantly, he was distracted by a nagging thought.

Sherlock's eyebrows wrinkled, and he felt agitated. The explanation had been rather straightforward until this point, but he couldn't pin down the final part; there were too many possibilities.

"How did you actually enter the room? I have several theories, and I'd like for you to confirm the correct one."

"Oh?" she teased flirtatiously.

"Yes, approximately six," he responded impatiently, anxious to nail down the final details.

"Why don't you share them with me, and I'll tell you if you're hot or cold?"

He thinned his lips but she simply smiled, and he stared fixedly ahead again. "I don't like games, Irene."

"Of course you do, Sherlock," she rejoined, and after a moment he decided that he was pleased with her contradiction. He couldn't fool her, and it was refreshing. With most people he could say and do whatever he wished and get away with it.

He huffed but raised both hands in the air, one holding all five fingers aloft, and one with just his index finger straightened.

"One," he said, folding the index finger so that the left hand was just a fist. "You were able to take the master key card off of a maid somehow; either from her person or her cart."

"Decidedly cold," Irene pouted, but her eyes were dancing with enjoyment.

Sherlock dropped his fist and the first finger of the right hand. "Two. You flirted with the security guard in order to distract him, at which point you obtained _his_ master key card."

"Still cold. That's just a variation on One, and they're equally wrong. You don't get to count those as two separate theories." Her voice was gleeful; she was enjoying this far too much.

"Three," he continued. "You somehow lifted a guest's wallet and bribed a security guard, or maid, or bellboy, or whomever, to give you a key."

"Warmer, but still cool. I didn't steal anything. All three of your premises so far have rested on the presumption that I did."

"Fine. Four. You pretended to be my mistress who was surprising me while I was here on business, and you promised that I would provide rich recompense to whomever admitted you to my room."

"Even warmer. And I like that scenario," she purred. "Are you interested in the concept of role play? From what I've seen of you dressed as a priest, I think you would quite enjoy it. . ."

" _Five_ ," he said a little more loudly, acting as if he hadn't heard her, but he couldn't help but dart a quick glance at her lips, the lower of which she was gently biting with her upper teeth. At the sight, his pulse picked up slightly, but he quashed it. _It cannot happen again_ , he ordered himself.

"You don't have any money, as far as I'm aware—" He shot her a quick, questioning glance, and she confirmed with a shake of her head. "So barring theft, which you've already ruled out, bribery is off the table—unless you didn't bribe with money, but with. . ." He cast a sudden look at her nude body, and then his nose and brow scrunched with disgust. "Don't tell me that you performed sexual fav—"

"Of _course_ not!" Irene interrupted as if she were appalled by the idea, then smirked and said a beat later, "There wasn't enough time for that."

Sherlock stared at her for another moment, his eyes narrowed, and then pouted his lips thoughtfully in acknowledgement. "No, I supposed not. You were already inside the room when I arrived, and I didn't waste any time returning."

He looked at her again, taking in her creamy skin with its light dusting of freckles, and he was dismayed when he was able to diagnose his unpleasant reaction to 'Five' as jealousy. He was even more disgusted by the realisation that he felt relieved when she had ruled out the theory.

"Alright, then. Five: You said I was warm with the mistress concept. . . You pretended to be an escort that I had ordered, but you were supposed to be ready for me when I returned from work, and I had left you a key at the front desk. You managed to convince the ( _markedly_ ) naïve receptionist that there had been an error, and that I would be very angry if I didn't get my way. You promised him that I would tip him handsomely for his troubles. Obviously you would look the part (if consistent with the footwear you wore into my room, your captors let you keep your own clothing beneath the chador), so it wouldn't have been much of a stretch to convince him."

"While I'm intrigued by your line of thinking, you're cold again—except for the clothing part, you're correct about that. But Occam's razor, Sherlock; that theory is too complex." She leaned over to rest her palm on his sheet-covered thigh, and he stared down at the top of her hand. "Look, shall I just tell you?"

With difficulty he pulled his eyes away from where she was touching his leg, and he gave her a penetrating look, his mind reconsidering and then dismissing his final idea. After a moment he relented with an airy wave of his hand, but he knew she was not duped into thinking he wasn't very interested. She smirked, which confirmed it, and slid her hand off him.

"I simply walked in," she explained breezily. "The maid was finishing hoovering, and I casually entered as if it were my own, smiled at her, and headed into the shower."

Sherlock nodded, then frowned. "But it was only your footprints that headed into the room. How did she unplug the vacuum cleaner?"

"The outlet was in the hall."

That was true, he recalled, but, "No. Even if she had retreated out of the room hoovering over her footprints until she was back in the corridor, your prints occurred _after_ that."

"I arrived right as she was finished with the room," she teased.

"And what, the door was just magically propped open?" he sarcastically countered back immediately.

She smirked, unabashed. "A gold star for you, then."

"What really happened?"

She simply smiled enigmatically at him, silent in the wake of their rapid-fire volley.

"Not to mention," he added, "the maid service had long since concluded by that time of evening."

Her smile turned playful and she quickly slid the back of her knuckle up his arms as if she were distracted. Against his control, his muscles rippled slightly under her touch and he felt the small hairs there stand on end.

"Fine," she said, her voice slightly smug, whether from the fact he didn't know the answer or his response to her touch, or both, he wasn't sure. "You had some of the correct elements, but you didn't put them together accurately. I did persuade the receptionist to give me a duplicate key card, but I didn't play the obvious role. Rather—once I binned the chador in the women's toilet and looked suitably foreign and _western_ again—I marched up to him screeching that I was your wife from England who had tracked you down here—"

"My wife, hmm?" Sherlock couldn't help but note in a slightly acerbic tone. "What was that you said about disguises? 'No matter how hard you try, it's always a self-portrait'?" So is that what you'd like to be, Irene, my wife?"

"Oh, are you proposing?" she countered immediately. "Only if you promise you'll never ask me for children."

"Mr. Sigerson is Norwegian," he stated flatly, rather than reply to her and continue a segue he'd almost instantly regretted making. Though they were speaking in ironic tones, the subject resonated with his recent realisations a little too closely for comfort.

Irene immediately caught on to his apparent non sequitur and made a dismissive scoffing sound. "As if he's paying attention. Most people aren't, you know."

He did, and the fact that she did too was. . .rather extraordinary. Of course, _she_ was rather extraordinary. He had recognised that even before he'd ascertained the exact nature of his regard for her.

"Besides, Norwegians are permitted to live and marry in England, although apparently unhappily so, in your case." She adopted a high, strident tone that made him cringe. "'He's _supposed_ to be in Mumbai on business, but I _know_ he's here with _her_.' I quite enjoyed getting into the histrionics of a woman scorned."

As someone who had frequently employed disguise in the course of an investigation himself, he had to admit that he was amused. He even found himself chuckling aloud at the mental image, before another question occurred to him.

"But how did you manage to actually convince him to ignore decorum and hotel policy in favour of letting you into a guest's room? Without money, or 'other' compensation."

She gazed at him levelly. "Well there wasn't 'other compensation' _then_ —like I said, there was no time for that. But I'm afraid I did rather lead him on, I implied I'd meet up with him later tonight. I think he probably thought he'd be my rebound/revenge shag." She hummed mischievously, "Perhaps because I explicitly told him so. . ."

"Ah, now that sounds more like the woman I know," Sherlock said, actually smiling. "He'll just have to assume the Sigersons managed to work things out unexpectedly. Maybe I should tip him to help compensate for his imminent crushing disappointment."

She was looking up at him with a sly yet also shy expression, not speaking, and he nodded distractedly as something clicked.

"Oh I forgot. You did expect it."

Their eyes glued together again in that damn unbreakable connection and he could feel his respiration and heart-rate pick up immediately. _And_ _so very easily_ , he cursed. Riveted, he watched as the back of her knuckles softly grazed the side of his arm again, her expression one of solemn deliberation. His right hand came up to capture her wrist in his gasp, though not to take her pulse this time, and they stared into each other's faces for a long moment, both breathing hard.

Feeling his resolutions becoming more and more feeble against the powerful compulsion of what he wanted, he cast his mind desperately for something, anything, to distract him. Finding it, he seized upon it gratefully.

"One last question." He couldn't believe how preposterously low and baritone his voice sounded.

"Mmm," she said, her eyes dark and half closed, her lips half parted.

He slowly released her hand and folded both of his tightly over his stomach so that he wouldn't be tempted to take it again, and she blinked and shut her mouth. The spell was broken, at least for the moment.

"What did you do with the weapon?"

She paused for a second, then seemed somehow resigned. "It's in the bathroom. I didn't know when we might need it ag—"

Before she could finish her sentence he had bounded out of bed to see the gun for himself. He found the AK-47 leaning against the pedestal sink at a rakish angle as if it belonged there, and when he checked the magazine, he saw that there were still 30 rounds; it was full. Perfect.

He started to return to the bedroom, but then took a deliberate step backwards, wrapped a towel around his waist, and then took a position at the doorway, which seemed neutral.

"I'm going to take a shower," he announced, the avenue of escape (albeit temporary) suddenly occurring to him. "But you should probably get some sleep. Since I've found you so quickly—"

"I found _you_ ," she corrected, not missing a beat.

"Since we were able to coordinate so quickly," he reworded impatiently, "we should set the rest of my plan into motion first thing in the morning."

"The rest of your plan?" she asked blankly, drawing her knees up to her chest and leaning on them.

"Of course, the rest of my plan," he said, drumming his fingers against the doorframe. "You don't think I've gone to all this work without ensuring that you won't simply get captured again in several weeks' time, do you?"

Her brow creased with confusion. "But I came to you. I found you."

"Yes, yes, we've established that you found me _first_. But that's only because there was no time to convey to you where to meet during your rescue. We were a bit preoccupied, if you'll recall."

"But you didn't know where I would go. . ."

"As I said, it would've been wiser for you to head towards the sea and try to get away from the country by boat. And as you're a not-unintelligent woman, I anticipated that you would choose that route. As such, I spent the day before yesterday and the day before that, traveling the coast and stopping in each fishing village in the radius of a day's travel, focusing specifically on those that one can reach by taking roads or connecting roads from the compound. I provided incentives for people to keep an eye out for you in the form of 3,000 rupees, and I offered a reward of 145,000 rupees to the first person who saw you and reported your whereabouts to me."

He paused to grin. "God, I love bribery! I only wish it were more acceptable in England, although to be fair I do get away with it quite regularly there as well."

Then, business-like again, he continued, "I even passed into India and went to the ports of Mandvi and Jamnagar, just to be thorough."

Irene took in the long but rapid explanation with a stunned expression, and Sherlock felt somewhat pleased that he was able to surprise her like this. It was evident that she'd believed that she'd been on her own after her rescue, but she should've known better; he never did things halfway. That would just be sloppy.

"What if I'd headed to the city but decided against contacting you?" she challenged.

Sherlock narrowed his eyes quizzically. "Why would you do that? But for the sake of argument, I'm certain I still would've been able to track you. I've made it this far, haven't I? Finding you in one city is significantly simpler than tracking you across the globe."

"You found me because I _wanted_ you to be aware of my movements," she pointed out, finally confirming what he'd come to suspect.

Her jaw was set and her eyes shining, and he stared into them for a second that felt like much longer as all the implications of that statement regarding her sentiments—and his, since _here he was_ —flooded his mind. Finally he shook his head and pushed two hands through his lank curls.

"Look," he said firmly, in an attempt to sound confident as he reverted back to the safe, rational topic at hand. "I knew there would be one of three outcomes: I would find you due to my own diligence; you, remaining consistent, would leave a trail that would lead me to you; _or_ you would come to me yourself. The rest of my plan is predicated on us being together, so clearly I wasn't concerned."

She was still gazing at him from where her head was propped on her knees, and the room was simultaneously very tranquil and very nerve-racking. He felt the correspondingly paradoxical needs to slam the door in her face or go to her, and he slightly cleared his throat.

"Now as I said, try to rest. We'll get started in the morning."

She still didn't move, and her blue eyes drilled into his, full of that same unclassified emotion. Was it gratitude? No, that didn't seem quite right. As he'd told her, he'd seen that countless times, and it was simple to read, unlike this. This was complicated.

Intentionally surrendering their game of chicken, he blinked first, and shut the door softly between them, his heart pounding hard in his chest again.

Turning on the shower tap, he was grateful for a moment away from her knowing, piercing look so that he could think, but as soon as the hot water began cascading across his head and shoulders, a wave of exhaustion swept over him that was so profound that he could barely finish washing his hair.

When he stumbled from the steaming bathroom, he saw that the lights had been switched off, and Irene's form was long and still under the covers, but he was too exhausted to observe whether she was genuinely sleeping or simply faking it.

On autopilot, he dropped his towel and slipped on a pair of pyjama bottoms, before settling into bed opposite of The Woman.

He fell asleep instantly and slept more fully and deeply than he had in weeks, perhaps months. It wasn't until the weak rays of early morning light were beginning to slide under the hotel's plush drapery that he awoke, and then it was only due to the puzzling, repetitive, and unsettling sound that was filling the dim room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments always appreciated, many thanks!


	8. Emotions and Exemptions

He regained consciousness slowly and laboriously, as if struggling from under a great weight, and though he still felt utterly spent, something insistent and compelling was dragging him awake. For a moment his mind was clouded with fatigue and confusion, and there was no familiar data coming to him through any of his senses: not the surroundings he could see in the weak light, not the noise that woke him, not the scent of the room, and not the texture of what he touched. Nothing made sense.

Then abruptly several things snapped back into place all at once. The first was his memory of the previous night, which staggered him for a millisecond but was hastily tabled. He had no time to dwell on that with the plethora of other, more urgent thoughts vying for his attention. One of which was the (literally) pressing matter that apparently some time in the night he had shifted from a position on his side with his back to The Woman, on the opposite end of the bed, to a. . . more intimate arrangement.

Upon waking, he found that he had rolled towards the centre of the mattress and wrapped his body around hers, with his face pressed into her hair and his arms entwined about her figure, holding her to him securely. He'd obviously never woken up in such a circumstance, and he blinked repeatedly in bewilderment and lifted his head slightly to take in the surreal view, his mouth hanging slightly ajar. He began to rationalise to himself that since the air conditioning had finally kicked in during the night and the room had actually grown quite cool, he must have unconsciously gravitated towards her for warmth.

But that thought was suddenly cut off by his third, though practically simultaneous observation. The Woman's shoulders and ribs were shaking in recurrent paroxysms against his chest and biceps, and her abdominal muscles were contracting tightly every few seconds under his fingertips. One hand covered his where it held her, but the other was lifted up to span across her face. She was weeping, and though he could perceive that she was trying her best to remain as silent as possible, every so often a sharp gasp would escape, before she tried to silence it by momentarily holding her breath. This is what had awoken him.

He jerked his head up higher to look down on the unexpected and dismaying scene, and conflicting emotions clashed in his mind. "Irene. Irene, are you all right?" he asked at once. He was surprised at how concerned and urgent his voice sounded, but he'd had no time to think, just react, so it must have been an organic and genuine response.

At the sound of his words, she instinctively caught her breath and looked up, and he was shocked but also slightly fascinated to see how her eyes looked like a wild animal that was trapped in a snare. For the briefest moment he saw pure panic as she looked into his (presumably over the fact he was seeing her in such a vulnerable state), before the mask was snapped firmly back into place, and she jerked her other hand out from under his, every muscle in her body rigid.

Impulsively, and before he realised what he was doing, he slid his freed hand up her arm to wrap it tightly around her shoulder, and he exerted a bit of pressure to encourage her to turn towards him, but instead she turned away even further, still holding her breath.

His initial thought was that he was probably to blame for this somehow. This was not, after all, unprecedented. Regrettably but unintentionally he had made approximately a dozen girls and women cry in the past, and in practically all cases he hadn't even realised what was unfolding until it was too late.

The most recent example was just the past Christmas with Molly Hooper, and though she hadn't actually shed tears, he could hear the contracting of her glottis in her voice, which indicated the suppression of crying. And yet, just as in that case, he'd always been able to determine in retrospect how he'd been offensive. But now his mind was drawing a blank, and he felt vexed.

Then again, he had entered uncharted territories the previous night; who knew what type of nuanced emotional protocols existed, that he might have somehow violated? He wished she would just explain herself; he couldn't bear to be so in the dark.

"Irene, what's the matter?" he tried again, regulating his tone as much as possible so as to sound rational and logical, and encourage her to respond in kind.

"It's nothing," she said tightly. "Go back to sleep."

He ignored her. "Was it something I—" he started, in an attempt to better understand the situation.

"No," she cut in brusquely, then repeated, "Just go back to sleep." She sounded quietly furious, though with herself for showing any vulnerability, or at him for prying, he wasn't certain. He suspected that it was likelier to be the former. He'd always striven to divorce himself from the messiness of feelings, so he knew that if he were overwhelmed by emotion—as unlikely as that was from ever occurring—it would be exasperating enough, without the added humiliation of someone he respected bearing witness to it.

Nevertheless, curiosity overrode any sensitivity his insight might have fostered.

"Is this a common response?" he pressed. "Crying after sex. Is it some sort of reaction due to the combination of endorphins being released? It makes sense in theory but I've never—"

She interrupted him with a noise from the back of her throat and turned to look at him incredulously from over her shoulder. "You're quite the idiot, aren't you?"

He felt instantly stung and started to retort, then paused and reconsidered, taking in the developing situation and his complete lack of comprehension. "Perhaps about some things," he admitted quietly. "I think we've already established this is one of them."

Either because his confession softened her or because she was remorseful for her insult, her demeanor seemed to change and she slowly shifted back towards him, her eyes moist and her face still tense. She was working extraordinarily hard to maintain control; he could tell from the slight trembling in the muscles around her mouth and under her eyes.

"You really don't see why. . ." she said, scrutinising his face and shaking her head slowly.

His standard procedure when confronted with an unfamiliar scenario was to scan his memory for any analogous or partially comparable situations as a starting point, but this particular circumstance was unique; he had very limited experience holding an upset woman in his arms. There had recently been Mrs. Hudson of course, but his dynamic with this woman was quite a bit different.

Also, now that Irene had excluded the possibility that he was responsible, he had literally nothing against which to compare it. In this category, as with others he'd found immaterial to his life or investigations (such as politics, classical literature, or the culture of celebrity), he was perhaps even more ignorant than the average person. It was intentional—there was precious little space in his brain and he could usually use the internet as a massive auxiliary hard drive—but there were certainly moments when the gaps in his knowledge were problematic. Like when he was unable to immediately determine that the Vermeer painting was a reproduction due to its inclusion of the Van Buren Supernova in the Moriarty case the previous year.

And like now.

"No. . ." he finally concluded, then hesitated and added, "I'm sorry." He still sensed that that was somehow not adequate enough, and he inhaled through his nose then asked, "Will you explain."

The completely alien humility in his words seemed to break some sort of reserve in her, and without warning the mask she'd maintained since ever they'd met, and had only let slip a few times including last night (and only ever so slightly) dropped fully. Her face crumpled and she took another heaving breath, tears welling in the corner of her eyes again before sheening her cheeks.

Sherlock froze, completely unprepared and unequipped for such an onslaught, and he was caught between the equally compelling desires to escape from the room as quickly as possible, question her until she explained herself, and—most bizarrely—remain entwined in bed with her and try to provide a measure of support.

She took another shuddering breath and turned within his arms to face him further, resting her face against his left shoulder so that he could feel the moisture of her tears on his bare skin.

He stared down at her nonplussed, feeling completely paralysed with indecision and uncertainty. Was she ill? Was she injured in some way? What on earth was the meaning of this? Perhaps if he knew, he could offer the appropriate type of assistance.

Yet he suddenly became aware that he was rubbing the small of her back where his hand rested in soft, even strokes. It had been an entirely unconscious and absent-minded move; he hadn't even realised what he was doing. She was responding favourably though, he noticed.

She swallowed hard, and seemed to gather some self-control again, and he seized the chance to repeat, "What is the matter?"

For a long moment he didn't think she was going to respond to him, but then she leaned away from his shoulder and looked up into his face.

"I'm alive when I shouldn't be, and now I just keep feeling the metal of the blade where it would've. . ." she admitted in a wavering voice, reaching up to clasp the back of her neck, before losing her composure again.

Ah, residual anxiety from having sustained but ultimately survived a traumatic experience,he noted. Much more like the trouble with Mrs. Hudson and the Americans than he'd previously supposed—nothing to do with sex or emotions pertaining to sex. This made the matter marginally less ominous. Yet still, a strange and unfamiliar ache in his chest seemed to be reaching out in answer to her distress.

When he didn't respond, she minutely shook her head and inhaled shortly to regain a measure of self-possession. "But just a nightmare," she said, her voice hardening.

She moved to sit up, but he tightened his arms around her and her eyes warmed ever so slightly. He felt her relax against him again, and her breathing became more regular.

"It could have been my last night," she said evenly a moment later, although there was still a slight catch in her words.

"But it wasn't," he responded, trying to use logic as a way to provide some comfort. He knew that reasoning through things often helped him to alleviate stress, and he reckoned that, given other indicators, she functioned in a similar way. "You're adequately safe now and your position should be even more secure after tomorrow."

"But I didn't know that until the moment I heard my - that text alert," she countered, her voice tightening again.

"You planted clues so that I would find you," he pointed out. "You suspected that I. . .I care for you, and that I would track you to ensure your safety." So then, she must have had some hope.

"Yes." She raised her chin slightly and continued in a steadier voice, "Your reaction to my admission that I'd be dead within months without access to my cameraphone seemed extraordinarily callous at the time, even to me. But I later decided that you had been putting on a performance for the elder Mr. Holmes—and probably yourself to some degree, as well—since he had so scathingly condemned you earlier. You had to prove that you were decidedly above such things as sentiment and impressing a woman, therefore you acted as if you didn't care if I died. And so even though I wasn't one hundred percent certain of your own sentiment, I knew that I still needed to proactively chart my movements for you so that when, not if, the time came and I couldn't save myself somehow, you would know how come. You were my contingency plan all along."

Sherlock didn't know how to respond to her insights; it was strange and uncomfortable to have the mirror turned on himself, and he suddenly understood why John would sometimes get exasperated with Sherlock's own deductions and advise him to take a day off. He hadn't got it, before. And yet like John in those times, Sherlock couldn't deny that her observations had merit.

"But I was held captive for three weeks," she continued, "and there was no sign of you. I knew that if you had been following my whereabouts that would've been plenty of time for you to intervene. So the more time that passed, the less confidence I had in—" she paused briefly, "—my analysis."

Sherlock grew a bit defensive at this. "I knew that you'd been captured, by whom, and where you were being held within twenty-four hours," he informed her. He became aware that his voice was somewhat strident, and adjusted it to a more even tone. "But I also knew that I had to be very careful with how I extracted you. I don't want anyone to know that you've survived, particularly not my brother, and in some ways he's even cleverer than I." He made a face. "Much as I loathe to admit it. So the planning took longer, and I had to wait for the proper moment."

She was nodding, looking at a point on his right shoulder rather than at him. "I realise that now, and in the second week I told myself that that's what was causing such a delay. But at the beginning of the third week, and just when I was beginning to feel doubt, they informed me of my time of execution. I knew at that point that I had to redouble my own efforts to escape, and to hell with any plans you might've had."

She frowned and added bitterly, "Though of course none of them were successful; my captors were impervious to everything I have in my considerable arsenal to persuade a man, and I was too closely and securely guarded to try anything more clandestine."

"It's actually quite good that you didn't," Sherlock commented, passing over some of her more personal points to stick to tactical aspects. "As I said, our best chance for your continued safety is that you remained incarcerated right until the critical moment. Plus I would've had to waste all that time trying to find you again—and this time I doubt you'd have left any clues about, even any as veiled as they'd been for me."

They lapsed into silence again, and Sherlock wondered if she were going back to sleep, and if he should roll to the other side of the bed again. Yet there was something so pleasant and strangely decadent about the way they were intertwined, and he wasn't particularly inclined to move. She was warm and tangible in his arms, which made an agreeable contrast to the mere 'idea' that she had been, and whom he'd traced, for so long.

Besides, the whole experience, beginning when he'd disembarked from the plane at Jinnah International Airport, seemed vaguely surreal. In Karachi he was so distant, both physically and psychologically, from London—from Bart's, and black cabs, and Chinese takeaway, and his experiments, and John and his blog—that it was almost as if none of this were actually happening, as if it were just a particularly vivid dream.

This dim, serene, self-enclosed hotel room even further magnified the slightly unreal feeling that had followed him throughout this entire mission, and so there was a strange sort of logic that all this—the gaining of carnal knowledge, the talks, the revelations, the intimacy—would happen here. He couldn't imagine such events ever going down at 221B Baker Street—his home turf so to speak; the very idea was utterly absurd. But here, during this extraordinary operation? Apparently yes. . .

He snorted to himself, contemptful of the frivolity of his own thoughts, despite the ring of truth they held, and he started to ease back into unconsciousness. But just when he could feel the weight of sleep settling down on him, she spoke again, and it was evident that she had been deep in thought, rather than finished with the conversation.

"I suppose we could call this round a draw, don't you?" she asked in the dark.

"Mmm?" he asked, raising his head slightly from the pillow, only to realise that her face was resting only inches away from his. And though her eyelashes were still wet, she held an expression of engaged and slightly playful interest. It was the eloquence of her mind made visible on her face, and it was immensely appealing, and (he'd never before used this word in a non-ironic way) sexy. Taking it in, he felt fully alert again, although still quite relaxed.

"You saved me from a nasty end," she elaborated, and he tracked her face closely, taking in all its nuances, "but my theory about you was validated, and my investment in you paid dividends." She smiled a slow smile and added, "Although perhaps I did come out on top, all told, since you're clearly not thrilled to have to confront your emotions. I on the other hand am rather chuffed to have my head still firmly connected to my shoulders."

Sherlock didn't respond immediately, but reached unthinking to press his fingers into her hair and then drag his fingertips down the back of her neck and spine, to come to a rest on her shoulder blade, which he traced with the pad of his thumb. He sincerely regretted that she had to believe she was going to die, but it was for the greater good of his plan. And besides, he would've never let that happen—because she had been right, the words reasserted themselves yet again, glowing like neon in his mind.

At his initiating touch, she caught her breath.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," he finally answered, his voice deeply timbred, and he felt his breathing grow heavier.

Yet for some reason, his now-predictable physiological responses didn't grate on him as much as they had before. Perhaps it was his recognition (or possibly justification; it didn't really matter) that this hotel room, and this trip were somehow exemptions from his 'real' life. Yes, it would be different in London, and he could and would go back to his normal routine, but while he was here. . . What was the harm? He couldn't discern any—as long as he ensured that this was just a one-off, and that it changed nothing in the long-term.

"You wouldn't. . .say this round is a draw. . ." she said, her own voice breathy and low-pitched in response, and her eyes flickered down to his mouth.

"I wouldn't say that you necessarily came out on top," he clarified, rolling them over so that she was pinned beneath him to emphasise his point.

Her eyes widened and she studied his face closely, before they narrowed again and she asked teasingly, "And what about 'it won't happen again'?"

"Sod what I said," he replied dismissively, watching her lips intently. "Be consistent, Irene. You're unlike everyone in so many ways—and they all listen to what I say."

"So. I shouldn't," she interpreted, and she wrapped one leg around his, bringing them closer together.

"Precisely," he said, his lips quirking into an almost-smile, before he leaned forward to take possession of her mouth again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regarding sex, Benedict Cumberbatch recently said of his Sherlock characterization: "For me, Sherlock's not gay. He has a sexual appetite, but it's entirely swallowed by his work. He doesn't have time for it. . . That's really what is it. Not every man has a sex drive that needs to be attended to. Like a lot of things in his life where he's purposely dehumanized himself, it's to do with not wanting the stuff that is time wasting, that's messy. That goes for certain relationships, as well as sexual intimacy."


	9. Confessions

This time was so different, Sherlock noted fleetingly. Perhaps because he'd resolved that this weekend was a one-time exemption, or because now he knew what to anticipate physically and wasn't quite as unprepared, or because he had been able to label how he felt in reference to her, and these actions made a strange sort of logical (if foreign) sense. In any case, he wasn't hesitant or conflicted at all; in fact, it was quite the reverse.

Draped on top of her languorously, he tilted his head and deepened the kiss, and with a small sigh she slightly arched her back up to him and buried her fingers in his hair, drawing his face even tighter against hers. He felt his heart-rate accelerate, but there was no attendant feeling of urgency or the need to rush. This time the passion smouldered rather than immediately ignited and exploded.

His touch lingered thoughtfully on her—fingertips caressing slowly rather than groping and grasping blindly—and she cradled his head between her hands. Their lips whispered and melted against each other's in the growing but still dim blue light of the room, the only sound their breathing and the creak of the bed as they shifted their weight into a new angle. It was slow and unhurried, and yet he felt no less dizzy and overwhelmed; he was astonished that the previously unappealing act of—he put sarcastic mental quotation marks around the word— _snogging_ could, in fact, be so engrossing and exhilarating.

Meanwhile, Irene was permitting him to set the tone; she hadn't taken control or pushed the action forward herself at all, unlike the previous night. She seemed equally satisfied with the languid early morning pace, and responded to his gradually intensifying kisses by leisurely dragging an ankle up and down his lower leg, bunching up the fabric of the pyjama bottoms he still wore so that her instep ran along his calf muscles. The touch felt surprisingly tender, but even more interesting to Sherlock was that he didn't feel any urge to flinch away from the intimacy.

It was rare to the point of nonexistence for him to lose track of time, but after what could have easily been twenty minutes or an hour of pressing her into the bed, thoroughly exploring her mouth with his lips and tongue and occasionally, almost lazily, grinding his hips into her, he finally pulled away, breathing heavily, and looked down into her face.

With her swollen and parted lips, dark, half-closed eyes, and loose, tousled hair fanned out across the pillow he had the fleeting and frivolous thought that she looked like a Modigliani nude. Instantly he was incredulous at his own triteness, and a brief but intense look of consternation flitted across his face, though it was quickly discarded when she intentionally arched into him again, pushing her chest flush against his. She pressed her lips against his cheekbone then murmured sultrily into his ear, "Whatever it is, stop."

He obeyed with a low, short exhale, lifting his chin to catch her lips briefly. Then, bracing his elbows against the mattress and ducking, he nuzzled his face lightly along her sternum before turning his head to take the tip of one breast into his mouth.

He felt her shudder and with a smug expression he rolled his tongue across the taut flesh experimentally, and increased the suction. In response she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and grasped fists of his curls, pinning him to her, and he switched sides, fascinated by the breathy quality of the sounds she was making and still a bit bemusedly awed that he should be not onto witness to, but responsible _for_ such a thing.

There was a quality in those sounds he had never registered during any other situations in which adrenaline was present, such as fighting, exercising, escape, operating in disguise, or vigorous and challenging debate; it was unique to sexual excitement, he understood. And though he had only recently become acquainted with it, it elicited a somehow supremely familiar, instinctual response—from somewhere deep and secret within him. He couldn't claim that it was solely a physiological response, either.

His transient, passing thoughts seemed to have translated physically into increased fervor, because she tightened her grip on his hair, pulling the roots, and threw her head back on the pillow to expose a long column of pale throat. He immediately rose to latch his lips at the hollow there, and she answered by slipping her hands down his back and under his pyjamas to grasp the lean but firm musculature there. Then, with a sound of impatience, she pushed at the waistband, and he found himself perfectly in tune with her objectives.

He lifted his hips to help her push the fabric down to his thighs, and when she couldn't extend her arms any further he kicked impatiently, and the loose bottoms slid to his ankles, where she pulled them free with her feet.

"Teamwork," she whispered with a soft grin and dancing blue eyes, and he felt a slight mirroring of her expression on his own face.

"Yes. . ." he said, and it emerged as a deep growl more than a word. "I noticed that we made a fairly adequate team last night." For a fraction of a second her mouth slackened in surprise, before it turned up slyly. He chuckled briefly and leaned in to seal his lips to hers and then coax them open with his tongue. He was a fast learner.

She immediately responded but with a sensual thoroughness rather than fevered lust, and after a moment she pulled away to place a softer closed-mouth kiss on his lips, and looked up into his face with clear intent. He may have been inexperienced, but he understood the implication of that look implicitly. She didn't need to verbalise it; her eyes were more than eloquent enough.

They dispensed with any further foreplay, and while she watched him with bright, absorbed eyes, he spread his hands across the tops of her thighs and slid into her with one long stroke. Yet as he pulled back and then thrust again she grimaced slightly in evident discomfort, breaking their previously unwavering eye contact.

"Not good?" he asked, freezing at once but at a loss as where he had gone wrong when nothing in his cumulative and rather varied life experience had ever felt so natural or intangibly 'right.' "Should I—"

"No, don't stop," she murmured, digging her heels into the backs of his thighs like a jockey urging its thoroughbred forward. "Just a bit sore from last night, don't stop." She fixed him with a stern commanding look, then slid her hands from his pectoral muscles to his shoulder and pulled him down so that he framed her between his arms.

"I'm... sorry," he said against her cheek, though something in her pronouncement perversely pleased him, for mysterious reasons he couldn't comprehend. Yet once again, she managed to react in a manner he couldn't have anticipated.

"Well _I'm_ not," she smirked, tightening her legs around his lower back as he resumed his rocking movements. "There's good pain and bad pain and _wicked_ pain, and I well know the difference between them."

He smirked back unseen into her hair, though it coloured his tone. "Yes, I should expect you do," he said. "So which is it?" he couldn't help but asking shortly later, now deadpan.

"Oh the wickedest," she purred into his ear, before he silenced her by turning his head and capturing her lips with hers.

As the light in the room grew steadily brighter, they slid silently together on top of the sheets, moving as smoothly as if they'd learned this choreography and each other's bodies over years rather than hours. And while Sherlock understood that on one level they were both skilled at reading others and responding accordingly, he suspected that their profound sexual compatibility was more than simply the ability to manipulate, since his movements were smoothly instinctual rather than calculating and mechanical.

In the intimate and microscopic world of their embrace, when all he could sense was the heat radiating between them, the texture of her skin and lips, and the gusts of her breathing on his fevered flesh, he had to admit that there was something 'more' at play. 'More' was, of course, a grossly inadequate term, but he was unable to elucidate the concept further. All that he could discern was that it was intangible, and it made him feel powerful rather than inexperienced, confident despite his undermined mental processes (his single source of confidence, heretofore), altruistic rather than self-centered, and even, sometimes, willing to cede control rather than possess it. To further complicate the matters for him, the sensation seemed to resonate with the emotion he had seen flicker on The Woman's face since their reunion the previous day. It was familiar now, albeit no better known.

And while he knew that he had been correct that this overwhelming sentiment could have no place in his life when he returned to England, he felt disillusioned with his previous complacency, and almost bitter that he _couldn't_ be another man—a man who could have a satisfying career and a fulfilling private life as well; a simple man. Someone more like John, in other words.

And yet, he reasoned inanely as he focused on her blue eyes and began to increase his pace, if he were a different man he'd have never caught her attention, nor perhaps even wanted it, and all this would be rendered inconsequential. It was a riddle with no solution, he realised. _Remove one problematic variable and the entire principle collapses._

Irene reached up and clutched the side of his neck, her hair plastered against her flaming cheeks and her eyes burning sapphires. "Are you with me?" she asked breathlessly, and he knew that she referred to his climax, but it could also easily apply to everything he was considering, and he hesitated.

"Yes," he finally answered, and he kissed her deeply, and almost desperately.

* * *

Five minutes later she lay collapsed against him, and though they were both gasping for breath and glazed with sweat, the mood was significantly different than the previous night, though he couldn't detect how, precisely. Actually it was rather astonishing how different the entire experience had been. He knew cognitively that there were various categories of sex—based simply on the wide array of reference vocabulary available: making love, sleeping with, shagging, screwing, et cetera. But to experience it firsthand was another, far less cerebral matter entirely.

Silence stretched out between them, but this morning it felt weightless and comfortable, and Sherlock felt no need to fill it with rash commentary—nor did he feel any significant desire to smoke an entire pack of cigarettes, as he had the previous night. Instead, he contemplated the complex thoughts that had just surged through his mind with the incoherent logic of a dream, and while they were almost as ephemeral and nonsensical as actual dreams, he could still recall their very real power.

Finally she stretched against him, breaking his concentration, and he looked down to see her staring outward, her face equally thoughtful and pensive. Sensing his gaze, she looked up to meet it, and he raised one brow in question.

"How much time do we have before we need to leave?" she asked after a moment.

He knew with full certainty that she hadn't just been thinking about their time of departure, but he decided to accommodate her and answer the question she'd asked. In any case, he couldn't immediately determine her actual thoughts; once again she was a series of question marks.

He wasn't inclined to retrieve his watch from where he had left it on the bathroom counter, so instead he lifted his head to glance at the line of growing light stretching across the carpet from under the hotel's drawn curtains, then quickly calculated the date, the latitude and longitude of the city, and the direction the hotel room faced. "It should be around six twenty," he figured. "We have a small measure of flexibility in our schedule because I had intended to use today to locate you; nonetheless, some new intelligence has prompted me to revise the plan slightly—though it depends heavily on crucial information I don't yet have." After a beat he added, "And the sooner you leave the region, the better."

She nodded. "Does the new intelligence pertain to the cameraman who was covert military? Or did you already know about him?" she asked casually, and he regarded her with something akin to admiration. It was exceptionally rare that someone could keep pace with his own observations, but in the past half-day he had become more accustomed to it.

"I only learned it yesterday at the compound," he confirmed. "What gave it away for you?"

"I can usually tell the nature of a man," she said, a very slight smile on her lips, and her eyes glassy and introspective. "And in that case, 'one of those things was not like the other'. Also, stationing _him_ , a clearly-trained fighter, with the video camera and no weapon was even more incongruous. I'd thought. . ." she paused, then frowned at herself and continued. "I thought he was perhaps an envoy of yours, but when the executioner—that's to say, you—took position behind me to test the sword's swing, and he did nothing but let the tape roll, I believed I must've been wrong."

Sherlock didn't mention that he had been imprecise in his own initial judgment, or that his suspicions were only confirmed when the SSG agent had shot a man holding Sherlock at gunpoint; he simply nodded.

"Yes, I thought the same thing—about the obvious background in formal training and his poorly-cast role of cameraman," he agreed, once again experiencing an unpleasant flicker of guilt at the anguish his plan had apparently caused her. He hadn't considered that aspect at all when he was making it; he had been too focused on the tactical and strategic details. Still, he knew without a doubt that even if he _had_ taken it into account, he would have dismissed it as irrelevant if it meant sacrificing any cogency of the arrangement. She was alive and safe, and that had been the essential objective—both then and now.

"I expect that your execution was to be his first rite or test as a newer enlistee, like a gang initiation," he surmised to her. "And by that token, he wasn't yet trusted with any of their arms. . ." He sat up straighter, the siren call of work pervading as ever, and his hand clenched into a fist on his thigh. "It's _imperative_ that I find out if he's been able to remain embedded," he declared, his voice raising. "That should greatly simplify things. . ."

In Sherlock's peripheral vision he saw her only nod in a distracted way, and he darted another glance down at her. Her eyes still held that faraway expression, and he was both captivated and frustrated that he couldn't discern her thoughts. But then, her enigmatic nature was one quality that so drew him to her.

Temporarily diverted from his plans, he seized the opportunity to study her in greater depth, and he challenged himself to devise a theory for her strange, pensive mood. He could put the other plans on hold for the moment. . .

He did a cursory sweep from her forehead to her fingertips and back, taking in the tension in her hands, the stiff carriage of her shoulders, the creased dent in her forehead above one brow, the teeth worrying the left side of her lower lip, the slight darting movements of her eyes to the upper right, and then the lower right, the shallow, tight rise and fall of her chest rather than her diaphragm, and the twisting of the mouth to one side.

 _Stress, recalling specific memories, conducting an internal dialogue, struggling a with specific dilemma, indecision, anxiety, uncertainty_ , he ticked off, although he couldn't begin to ascertain the source. Put it all together, and. . .

"You have something you're contemplating telling me," Sherlock announced, and she blinked and her eyes cleared. She didn't look startled though; she gazed up at him evenly and expectantly, her blue eyes now focused and bright.

He took that as an indication both that he was on the right track, and that he had her tacit consent to continue. "But you have reservations," he elaborated, "and you're not sure how to broach it. It's a divulgence of some sort—and a personal one at that. But it's not something I would deduce on my own, so it's not about your sentiment for me, at least not directly. . ." He tilted his head and gave her one final scrutinising look. "And it's something no one knows," he finished.

Her face had remained neutral throughout his observations, but when he finished she smiled gently, though remained silent. She was focusing instead on the interior of his forearm, tracing and retracing over the line of his median vein with the back of her index fingertip.

"Am I close," he pressed, and it came out as _am_ Iclose in his impatience.

She finally stilled her movement and looked into his eyes. "You're very close," she said. "In fact, you're spot on."

"Only because you were allowing yourself to be vulnerable in front of me," he noted, not for empathy's sake, but for accuracy (well, not _just_ for empathy's sake, at least. . .). "Either it's because you're that comfortable with me, or because you're particularly distracted by your thoughts."

"It's both," she said simply, and he felt her slightly relax against him again, either resigned or relieved he had raised the matter himself.

He just nodded once, absorbing her words, then waited, sensing she wasn't finished speaking.

"You asked me why I found it gratifying to hear you say you'd never slept with anyone," she murmured, and he felt the rumble of her voice against his chest more than heard her.

He reached back in his memory and instantly recalled the exchange.

"I wasn't saying that only to embarrass you." A small wry smile touched her lips. "Although I'd be lying if I said that wasn't part of it."

Sherlock smirked in acknowledgment, and he absent-mindedly began brushing his hand along her spine.

"Sherlock." The tone of her voice was suddenly so different that he looked immediately into her face, which was grave.

"I've never slept with a man before. I've never wanted to. I've just never been terribly interested."

Sherlock remained silent, his mind curiously blank and his hand suspending its movement, and she watched him evenly, her face arranged back into a neutral position. But after just a moment's pause, his hand resumed stroking her back absented-mindedly.

"Are you surprised?" she finally prompted after a length of silence. The careful detachment dropped from her eyes and she watched him sharply.

He considered. "I don't really have any opinion on it," he replied frankly.

She blinked, and raised one eyebrow in silent question.

He hesitated, then elaborated, "I classified you as sexually experienced, which you clearly are, and I stand by that assessment. But that doesn't necessarily mean hetero-normative experience, and given that you identified yourself as gay, I can't say that I _am_ entirely surprised, no. . . .Nor does it matter to me."

"Ah, so you did hear me," she said, almost to herself, and he knew she was referring to the time he'd followed John to the Battersea Power Station and bore covert witness to her resurrection.

"Yes I heard, although I was a _tad_ bit more focused on the fact that you were still alive. And moreover, that you'd managed to deceive me. Besides, I had zero interest in you in that way, so it wasn't relevant to me."

"Or so you thought," she retorted, and he tilted his head in concession.

"So it would seem."

"Then don't you find it curious that I've slept with _you_?" she asked, flipping the question. "Because. . . _I_ do," she admitted bluntly a moment later, before he had the chance to respond. "When I initially heard about you I was intrigued, yes, but I never could have predicted this. You were simply a particularly fascinating challenge."

"So when you repeatedly sent texts asking me to 'dinner', which we both know was meant as an allusion to something else, it was just—"

" _Did_ you know?" she interrupted, and he slightly pouted his lower lip.

"Eventually," he admitted, and her serious expression broke into a small grin.

"Yes, it was just part of the game—at first. It was a bit of fun, and was calculated to throw you off, puzzle you. It was a safe gambit because I knew that you would never actually take me up on it."

They simultaneously made eye contact and smirked, given the contrast between her statement and their extremely intimate positions.

"I can't conclusively pinpoint when it became more than that," she said a short time later, and he privately agreed.

Although he had only last night identified the exact nature of his regard for her, he now understood that he was merely acknowledging what already existed, though he could not begin to fathom when it had taken a hold of him. It had been a gradual evolution, rather than a revolution, he concluded—almost too subtle to be perceptible until it was too late. Which it was; that had become more than painfully obvious in the past hour.

"So?" she prompted to remind him that he had not answered her earlier question.

He contemplated for a moment, and concluded that he didn't find the fact that she'd slept with him all too surprising either. "In my experience—cases, mind, not personal—sexual orientation doesn't necessarily fit into neat and separate categories. My anecdotal observations corroborate with a study researched by Alfred Kinsey, who determined that it's much more of a linear—"

"I'm well aware of Kinsey's findings," she interrupted, curtailing his tangent. "Still. I've never wanted. . ." She took a small breath and restarted, "I've never been _attracted_. . ."

She was being abnormally inarticulate, Sherlock thought, and stepped in again.

"Klein elaborated on the Kinsey Scale and wrote that orientation can change throughout a person's lifetime," he continued, addressing her last comment.

"Have you ever realised that the more uncomfortable you are, the more pompous you become?" she said with a sudden laugh, and this time his pout was more pronounced. She reached up to kiss his cheek, a subtle sparkle in her eye, and at once the sting of her words began to fade.

"Anyway, I don't think that's what this is," she dissented, becoming serious and pensive again. "I don't think I've _changed_ , per sé."

She switched gears: "I've accepted men as clients, of course, but the gratification I get from figuring out what they like, and then manipulating and controlling them through those things, isn't at all sexual. That particular job perk transcends gender. And I _have_ done. . . everything else. When I was younger or to further my own agenda in extreme cases, when I was 'misbehaving'. But it was just mechanical or the means to an end. There's never been. . . there's been nothing like this."

Sherlock nodded slowly, and a moment later he said, "I've always considered myself above this type of thing. I've been branded 'asexual' for most of my life—in school, at university, and since—and while it was always meant as a slur, I saw no problem with it. The definition wasn't necessarily a perfect fit but it was close enough to suffice, and I wasn't interested in digging any further. . ." He paused, then added slightly sardonically to compensate for his atypical and unexpected candor, "And yet, _look at us both_." He ran his hand down the length of her side to settle on her hip, and a small smile touched her lips, presumably from hearing her own words to John from that memorable conversation.

"Yes, look at us," she repeated albeit contemplatively, then added softly a moment later, "Each the other's exception."

He considered her statement, repeating it and weighing it in his mind: _Each the other's exception. . ._ He actually found it quite elegant and rather accurate, and huffed a small sound of approval. "Quite. . ." he finally said in a deep, appreciative voice, stroking his thumb across her hip in a sweeping motion. But she didn't move or respond to his touch, and he glanced down at her face to check her expression. She had none; she had fallen back asleep, one hand curled against his shoulder under her smooth flushed cheek.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lara Pulver (the actress who plays Irene Adler) gave an interview on this topic, and I loved what she had to say:
> 
> "It's so weird because I didn't like to label her. Yes, she says, 'I'm gay.' But what is she actually saying? 'I meet people and I fall in love with them and they happen to be of the same sex?' I don't know. I've literally just seen the interview with Barack Obama backing gay marriage and I'm thinking, we're in 2012, what's the big deal? People fall in love and I think more harm is done from suppressing your true identity than being given the freedom to just be. So I never felt like I was hugely flying the flag for gay rights or trying to be this iconic gay figure in any way because what's being gay? It's just a label, isn't it? Because, at the end of the day, I think she had feelings for Sherlock. So then people say, 'Well, so she's obviously not gay. She must be bisexual.' But actually, let's not label this. Let's just know that human beings fall for other human beings. I think I'm a bit of an anti-labellist, if there's such a phrase."
> 
> And more recently:
> 
> Interviewer: How was the sexuality element when you did Sherlock?
> 
> Lara: I never wanted to label or give her the identity. Yes, she admits in the scene with Watson that she's gay, but she fell in love with another gender. I think she just fell in love with a mind. She fell in love with Sherlock. It kind of turns it on to "Look, this is possible." I know so many people who they fall in love with a soul.


	10. The Morning After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovely readers, FYI, there's a lot of exposition at the beginning half of this chapter, and this entire thing is necessarily rather transitional.
> 
> Please see Author's Notes at the end for some background...

" _Well congratulations for pulling it off, Mr. Holmes. I wasn't sure that even_ you _were up to what you proposed."_

"Thank you," Sherlock demured, politic at first, though he couldn't resist adding, "yet it seems you were mistaken." He paced the perimeter of the bathroom in circles, impatient to end the connection now that all the pertinent information had been communicated.

" _Yes, and you won't hear me say this often, but I'm glad of it,_ " the voice on the other end of the line blustered. " _This has been rather fun, hasn't it! A definite departure from my usual duties."_

Sherlock rolled his eyes as the man continued, and unbidden, his gaze flicked through the doorway to Irene's still-sleeping form. Immediately an anxious, swooping feeling gripped his chest, and he turned firmly away from her to stare impassively in the mirror at his freshly-shaven and fully-dressed reflection.

" _I was a bit wary at first, of course, especially after going through that spot of trouble last year—I didn't want to stir the pot even more!—but it's been a ruddy good time._ " The man chuckled, then added, " _And the fact that you even managed to not expose Captain Mazari, means I won't catch hell from the SSG. Always a welcome change for a managing bureaucrat such as myself!"_

"Yes," Sherlock drawled a bit patronisingly, though he doubted the other man would detect it. He hated bloody phone calls; they almost always occasioned superfluous chitchat whereas with texting one only conveyed the essential facts. He knew that there was a salient quote about brevity, but he'd deleted it at some point.

" _Well then, I'll leave you to it. Don't make me think I've spoken too quickly here! Just let's finish everything up nice and neatly, and send you two on your ways. Good luck."_

Sherlock concluded the call without a response, snorting slightly in derision after pushing the End button.

"That was your source, I take it," a voice said from behind him, and his heart-rate instantly increased in involuntary response. He turned to see Irene fully awake and leaning against the headboard, the sheet wrapped around her chest, her blue eyes fixed on his, and the touch of a smile on her lips. "Oh, and good morning."

"Yes," Sherlock said in a blanket response to both her comments, and he reentered the bedroom, feeling rather self-conscious under her steady gaze. In full daylight things seemed much more vivid and real again; he had recovered his wits ( _or something_ , he grappled inarticulately) and he wasn't certain how to act towards her with everything that had happened between them. In the past hour since she'd fallen back asleep, he'd started to be seized by flashes of near panic over what had transpired, and he had come to dread the moment he'd have to face her again. Desire and base impulses had maneuvered him for the most part through the uncertainty of his first sexual encounter, but there were no such instincts this morning; he was entirely too clear-headed and sangfroid now.

During his uni days plenty of his hall-mates had experienced and discussed their so-called 'mornings after', and though he knew that this (whatever 'this _'_ was) wasn't comparable to those anonymous drunken interludes, he felt just as awkward as they had described. In another parallel to those intoxicated liaisons, he also couldn't quite understand what had happened—or _how_ it had happened. It was a blur of sensory memories and pleasure punctuated by a few dizzyingly provocative images.

Overwhelmed by the mere concept of considering everything that had transpired, he automatically reverted to a brisk and business-like demeanor, and was immensely grateful that he and The Woman did have legitimately vital business on which to focus. "He's sending a car and it should be here in a half an hour," he said, his voice a bit wooden. "Are you feeling fit and rested? Today might be a bit taxing."

She smiled slightly at his question, but ignored it. "He's sending a _car_? Who is he?"

"A man who owed me a favor," Sherlock replied instantly, trying to adjust his tone and respond in his usual flippantly self-assured manner and flashing a side grin. Still, he was aware that he was over-thinking how to react to her, and coming off as noticeably stilted. 'Over' thinking, something he would have argued wasn't actually possible for him, in any _other_ situation. Not to mention, he hadn't cared how he came across to anyone since he was back in school. He had a flare of annoyance towards himself, and returned focus to the question at hand. "I got him out of a 'spot of trouble' last year."

"I get the impression that that particular descriptor applies to a lot of people," she said, smiling slyly at him from below her dark eyelashes, but he quickly looked away from her eye contact once more, and the self-irritation intensified. He was about to pull off his magnum opus of audacious strategic planning against not one, but _two_ extremely dangerous and capable categories of opponent; why did he feel so uncertain and bloody clueless about this?

"You seem to have a similar knack," Sherlock deflected, thinking of the various people with whom Irene seemed to have influence or access, because she 'knew what they liked'. "But of course, due to an entirely different set of services provided," he couldn't help but add—perhaps as a way to put metaphorical distance between them, he wasn't sure.

"Of course," she agreed, but her body language almost imperceptibly tightened. Nevertheless, he could still sense her watching him expectantly, and he sighed, though he had to admit that he was pleased with the tidy way in which things had come together in the preparations for this mission. _If_ he were a man who believed in fate. . .

"My contact is a Mr. Caldwell," Sherlock told her, a bit reluctant to name his source. A feeling of slight mistrust towards Irene Adler had returned with the day, as well. "He's the Deputy High Commissioner to Pakistan, and he heads up the district office of the British High Commission that's located here in Karachi."

Sherlock began to pace around the room as he briefed her, performing final checks that he had all of his belongings and documents, particularly his and Irene's counterfeit credentials. The added benefit, of course, was that he didn't have to look at her nude and supine form as he did so.

"It's actually been rather opportune because his title permits him a certain degree of influence, but since he doesn't have the prominence of the High Commissioner he's able to get away with quite a lot, as we've learned. He's also somewhat _devious_ , which always helps with these types of things," Sherlock added with a sardonic smile.

"How do _you_ know the Deputy High Commissioner to Pakistan, and moreover, how did he come to owe you a favour?" she asked, leaning forward and now also smiling in appreciation.

Sherlock launched into further explanation; he continued to be grateful that he could just focus on tangibles rather than what had transpired over the course of the past ten hours, and now that he had revealed the name, he might as well go in for the pound.

"Until very recently he was actually the UK Ambassador to the Holy See, during which time he was responsible for conveying a gift of extremely valuable Ancient Roman jewelry from Pope Benedict to the Queen. Unfortunately for Mr. Caldwell, they vanished from his care—to significant political fallout—and he was the prime suspect until I was invited in."

She smiled knowingly, a twinkle of recognition in her eye. "Hmm, an ambassador to the Vatican? Were there any _cameos_ in that jewelry collection, by any chance?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact there were," Sherlock replied, his eyes flicking over to her approvingly. She had an impressive memory, though it came as no surprise.

He continued in a hurried but concise pace: "I quickly recovered the artefacts, cleared his name, and saved his political career. . . Although, he _did_ go from the Ambassador in a highly prestigious assignment to the _deputy_ High Commissioner in a _satellite_ office. I take it Her Majesty still held him partially liable for the scandal, even if he wasn't directly responsible. They were, after all, in his safekeeping. Still, he wasn't sacked, his reputation wasn't ( _very_ ) ruined, and he didn't go to prison, so he's been quite keen to assist."

He paused abruptly and smirked somewhat nastily. "I do suspect it also relates to the fact that he seems to intensely dislike Mycroft—jealous, obviously—and he enjoys that we're keeping my brother in the dark. As a member of the diplomatic service Caldwell runs in a similar circle, you see, and I'm fairly certain he's also a member of that poncey gentleman's club." He brought his palms together. " _Now_. Will you be ready to go soon?"

"What did you tell him about _me,_ when you approached him about all of this?" Irene asked, not moving in the slightest from her relaxed but engaged position in bed. "Because surely you couldn't have told them the truth. I don't think he would've been particularly inclined to assist someone who'd threatened 'Queen and Country'."

"Literally, on both counts," Sherlock grimaced slightly. Cognitively of course, he still remembered everything, but other qualities of hers had come to outweigh that memory in his mind, and he wasn't thrilled with the reminder. "And probably not, no. Even that might have made his decidedly _less_ -than-officious conscience take pause. Although if he knew it had been _Mycroft_ you'd been provoking, he might've been able to look past your. . . little indiscretion." He chuckled wryly.

"So?"

Sherlock hesitated; this was getting too close to the very subject he wanted to avoid. "I told him the partial truth; that's the best kind of lie, after all. I said you and I had a relationship of a category I'd prefer to keep discreet, but that you had been entertaining a wealthy salt baron here in Karachi when a cell of the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist group determined your profession. To them, you represented everything wrong with western womanhood and its sordid influence on Pakistani men, and they wanted to make a statement out of you."

"So yes, quite close to the truth. In fact, I think the reason you gave for my capture here was quite a significant factor, on the balance," Irene said quietly.

"Perhaps," he replied.

"And he didn't think it was _strange_ that you wanted it all done in underground channels rather than passing the case to the proper authorities and experts?"

"I said that I insisted on discretion for two reasons. The lesser reason was because if the press got wind of an English woman being held by insurgents it would create a firestorm of media attention, and I didn't want you to suffer that type of focus."

"Why not, if it meant saving my life?" she challenged, playing devil's advocate.

Sherlock frowned; this was the part he didn't want to reveal. "I said that. . . I cared for you and wanted to keep the particulars of your profession private, for both your sake and mine."

She rolled her eyes at that, and Sherlock supposed she didn't find it particularly persuasive. And why would she? he supposed. She wasn't ashamed of what she did.

"And the second, and main, reason?" she followed up.

"I wanted things to be done my way, and obviously I wouldn't have that flexibility, or any part of it at all, if the SSG took over. I was to run the show and call all the shots myself, from start to finish."

"And he accepted that?"

" _I_ was asking, and he owed me a massive favour. He wasn't really in a position _not_ to accept it. But yes, he seemed to."

"And the rest of your plan?" she pressed. "How did you explain why you needed to do anything else beyond my rescue?"

Sherlock wasn't accustomed to having to validate every thought process and move he made, and he was finding a challenge. Didn't she comprehend he had it firmly under control? And yet he knew, if their roles were reversed, he'd have the need to be aware of the finest detail as well. "Again, I didn't justify it to him," he answered, and then continued with a heavily insinuating tone in his voice: "I reminded him that my ways may appear unorthodox, but that he had experienced firsthand what those practices could do, and that he must just trust that I have my motives. He completely concurred, and after that he basically issued me a carte blanche."

"Impressive," she purred, a closed-lip smile pulling up both corners of her mouth. "It seems you've thought of everything."

"Of _course_ I have," he replied impatiently. "Now, will you be ready soon? I estimate we only have twenty minutes."

"Is there any breakfast?" she said, stretching languorously and looking about the room in mild interest.

"Breakfast?" he asked in a distracted tone, as he watched the sheet dip dangerously low over her chest when she extended her arms.

She caught his eye, glanced down, then smirked lightly and pulled the sheet securely around herself again.

He blinked, and slightly shook his head. "You dress, I'll find something for you to eat," he directed, though not out of altruism. Rather, he seized upon the situation as an opportunity to gain some distance to think ( _escape_ , a small but insistent voice asserted in his mind), and a strategy to get her out of bed and onto his schedule. Also, to his utter disbelief and scorn, he realised that he was ravenous.

But he was on a _case_ , he thought savagely. Not only was he was always able to suppress his appetite, but it usually barely even registered; the impulse was crowded out by too much other— _vastly more important_ —brain activity. Could it have been all the. . .recent vigorous exercise? He calculated how many calories he'd likely burned, and his lip curled. He immediately dug into his trouser pocket for the packet of Dunhills, and fingered the few remaining cigarettes within gratefully. Last night might have been pivotal in some ways—that couldn't be denied—but he'd be damned if he would let it alter the methods by which he went about his work.

"But not for you?" she asked pointedly, placing her finger directly on the matter as usual.

"I'm fine," he said, sounding a little too peevish for his liking, and he roughly jammed one of the cigarettes in between his lips.

She just raised an eyebrow as if to say _suit yourself_ , then stretched again, and this time the sheet slid to her waist. Immediately he turned on the spot and fled the room, knowing without visual confirmation that Irene's expression was one of knowing bemusement.

* * *

Sherlock guessed that the automobile that pulled into the roundabout in front of the hotel's reception was not what Irene had pictured when he'd stated they'd been sent a car, and his thought was confirmed when her eyebrows creased in curiosity and she threw a questioning glance up towards him. Instead of a sleek towncar, the vehicle was an industrial and utilitarian station wagon with limited cramped seating and a large storage bay that was currently stocked with something that Sherlock had loaded in the predawn hours of the previous morning. He ignored her inquiring eyes and simply made his way down the hotel steps to slide into the far seat behind the driver, carefully sliding the stolen AK-47, wrapped up in his coat, under his seat. Taking his lead, she climbed in between him and the long refrigerated container, then stared at it assessingly, and he could see ideas beginning to formulate in her head. She was on the right track, too, he noticed, though she didn't say anything immediately.

The vehicle pulled out of the peaceful and verdant hotel drive and through the gate, where it merged with the chaotic and exhaust-spewing rush of cars, motorbikes, caravans, mopeds, and city buses, but Sherlock and Irene sat next to each other in silence, their arms and thighs almost touching, but not quite.

He tried to move his focus inward and review the day's upcoming schedule, but every time she brushed hair away from her face, or sighed, or slightly shifted her position, he was diverted. She was a magnet and he found himself and his attention inexorably drawn to her, despite his herculean efforts to focus on the upcoming task at hand. It was _absurd_ , he thought almost angrily; they weren't even touching and yet he was overwhelmed by his hyper-awareness of her proximity, and the tension that crackled like static between them.

It wasn't only when he was in her immediate vicinity, either. When he had gone downstairs to collect a plate of food from the hotel's breakfast buffet, he had attempted to review his upcoming stratagem, but to his horror he felt distracted and mentally sluggish. Even worse, he kept experiencing unbidden, powerful, and extremely vivid flashbacks of sensory experiences or visions from the previous night and early morning: the texture of her tongue in his mouth, the intensity of their eye contact, the caress of her hair brushing against his shoulders as she leaned over him, a bead of sweat dripping between her breasts as he pressed her into the mattress. . . Each episode caused him to flinch, screw his eyes shut tightly, and shake his head—all which drew looks of concern from the other patrons in the buffet queue, though he paid them no attention.

This was inexcusably dangerous, he knew, and he realised with fury that he had been grossly premature and permissive in thinking that this trip was some sort of absurd exemption or free pass. If anything, he needed a clearer and more focused mind than _ever_ before. He had never attempted a manoeuvre with this level of detail and danger, nor attempted to fool anyone half as clever as Mycroft Holmes. Only part of the mission was even completed, there was still much more to come, and it needed his full brainpower.

To add insult to injury, as he was travelling up in the lift he found that he'd already devoured three quarters of a large piece of quiche before he'd realised what he was doing. _Absolutely no focus or self-command whatso_ ever, Sherlock had berated himself scathingly, and he'd violently shoved the remainder of the slice into the first rubbish bin he'd passed when he returned to their floor. And yet, even when he'd reentered the room and found The Woman waiting, fully dressed and coiffed, he'd still recognised a flash of desire towards her.

Just as the dense buildings and traffic of the city were beginning to dissipate into dry arid scrubland and dilapidated single-story concrete structures, Irene broke into his contemptuous chain of thoughts, and asked in a low but casual voice, "Is that what I think it is?" She cut her eyes to the container and raised one eyebrow.

Sherlock briefly inhaled through his nostrils to regain a measure of composure. He didn't want to reveal just quite how shaken he was this morning, both because he was feeling guarded after all his injudiciousness of the previous night and early dawn, and because he wanted to appear firmly in control. Fortunately, he considered himself an excellent actor.

"Oh, you can speak up in front of Mr. Jarwar," Sherlock answered her in a suitably normal and even slightly amused tone. "He helped to _load_ the car. And yes, it probably is what you think it is, if you suspect it's the body of a young woman with approximately your measurements, and roughly your skin tone and hair type. It's not as close as you managed, but considering I didn't have much in the way of time to make my selection— _or_ a wide array of choice—it should do quite well."

"How?" she asked, leaning back in her seat and looking duly impressed.

"Mr. Sigerson, or rather _Dr._ Sigerson, has been publishing in applied chemistry journals for _years_ ," he said smugly. He was rather proud of the alias he had been cultivating over the better part of a decade; it had been even more useful than he'd initially imagined, and all his investment of time and effort had been repaid a hundred fold. "A few weeks ago he arranged to deliver a guest lecture at the University of Karachi on one of his latest articles. It was to be tomorrow, but unfortunately I don't think he's going to be able to make it."

She nodded once. "I see. . ."

"I'd expect no less," he replied at once, then continued. "I was given a tour of the campus a few days ago, during which time I was able to explore the premises of the medical school. It wasn't difficult after that to return and retrieve an appropriate cadaver. I'm just glad you have dark hair. Not a lot of blondes or redheads donating their bodies to science in Pakistan. . . though of course there's always dye," he added as an afterthought.

"Macabre," Irene said, but the corner of her lip was twitching and her eyes were dancing in amusement.

"And fortunately unnecessary," he said idly, staring out the window at the passing countryside. "That's one thing made more convenient."

"I hardly think the word 'convenient' can describe anything that's happening here," she remarked lightly, and his lips bent into the approximation of a tight smile, though the movement didn't reach his cheeks or eyes.

"Yes, wouldn't that just be so _boring_ ," he rejoined.

Though he acted as if he wasn't observing her reaction, he watched her in his peripheral vision. However, instead of smirking as he had expected her to, she just assessed him knowingly, apparently as maddeningly intuitive as ever.

After a moment during which she was clearly deliberating over something, she took a short breath and he frowned in anticipation. "Sherlock. . ." she started, but he couldn't face anything she had to say if it was prefaced in such a probing tone, and he shook his head sharply, his expression foreboding. _Not here, not now_. She pursed her lips and her dark blue eyes flashed, but she did not continue.

They relapsed again into silence as they traveled along increasingly empty, dusty rural roads and through increasingly smaller villages, though Sherlock barely registered any of it—intentionally. Through enormous strength of will he forced himself to ignore the distraction seated beside him and focus on restoring and channeling his accustomed mental acuity; he reminded himself that her life certainly, and his life possibly, depended on it.

He closed his eyes lightly, inhaled and exhaled measuredly as if in meditation, then leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and his fingertips steepled below his chin. Behind his lids his eyes flickered back and forth, and finally, after he expended what felt like a staggeringly prodigious effort, something clicked satisfyingly and rightfully into place. Concentration flared, expanded, and then encompassed him like a flame, ideas streamed lucidly, and connections spun and joined with instant ease.

A smile of great self-satisfaction tinged with relief spread across his otherwise passive face, and he remained there, taut and motionless, going over detail after detail in his plan and looking for potential weak points or mistakes, or potential revisions. He only lifted his head an hour later, when the driver slowed their vehicle to a stop in front of an abandoned, sprawling concrete compound very similar to the one they had fled the day before, and his eyes were the shade of Torne River ice—and just as hard and clear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few Author's Notes (for some background/basis of parts of the chapter):
> 
> 1.) For those who aren't familiar with the source of the phrase "Vatican Cameos," it was a case to which Sherlock briefly alluded in The Hound of the Baskervilles:  
> "I was exceedingly preoccupied by that little affair of the Vatican cameos, and in my anxiety to oblige the Pope I lost touch with several interesting English cases".  
> —Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles  
> ACD never elaborated further, but the case was imagined by Ann Margaret Lewis as part of the book, Murder in the Vatican: The Church Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes.  
> The summary of that story is:  
> "Sherlock Holmes helps Pope Leo XIII recover a rare collection of ancient Roman cameos that has vanished en route to Queen Victoria. A gift with political implications, their loss could cost English Catholics their much-needed cathedral in London. Holmes travels to Rome to locate the stolen baubles, but when this theft quickly turns to murder, Holmes and the Holy Father realize this case is more treacherous than they imagined."  
> So I've appropriated/updated elements of that story for this one :)
> 
> 2) Mr. Caldwell is a fictionalized version of Francis Campbell, who really was the UK Ambassador to The Holy See until early 2011, and is now the deputy High Commissioner in Karachi. So apologies to Mr. Campbell for (more or less) appropriating him—a real person—into my story! The coincidence was just TOO good to ignore :) Sherlock needed someone who owed him a HUGE favor, and Mr. Campbell (aka Mr. Caldwell), who had been at the Vatican but is now in Karachi, fit the bill perfectly.  
> (However, this fictionalized version is absolutely no reflection on the real person, who I'm sure is lovely, and isn't at all devious or petty like Mr. Caldwell!)
> 
> 3) Oh, and the famous quote about brevity is "Brevity is the soul of wit," which makes it the second Hamlet quote I've mentioned, lol. It must be because I recently saw it (with Michael Sheen at The Young Vic, he was phenomenal!).  
> I'd greatly appreciate any review or feedback you might have; I love hearing from readers :)


	11. Queens, Knights, and Pawns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you once more to my readers – you really turn the somewhat solitary process of writing into such a great interactive experience. It makes me feel like a storyteller rather than someone just typing away at my laptop! ;)

When they made their way into the dark, cavernous, and abandoned concrete structure that Sherlock had selected on a reconnaissance trip for its resemblance to the insurgent's compound (which he'd scouted the night before that), he was gratified to see that many of his instructions had already been completed, or were at least in process. The large central room resembled a film set, which was in fact its essential function for the day; bright halogen lamps had been set up around the chamber and their thick cords crisscrossed the chipped concrete floor to connect to a chugging generator. Various men in dark kurtas were milling about the area like extras, and a sleek digital camcorder stood incongruously on a tripod on one end of the room. He even faintly smiled when he saw a LuAZ-1302, and his smile widened to an appreciative grin when he realised a fraction of a second later that it was, in fact, the exact same vehicle that had driven him to safety the night before. Captain Mazari must have done some reconnaissance which showed quick thinking in the aftermath of The Woman's extraction. . . he had to admit that he was mildly impressed with his attention to details.

Sherlock identified the man from across the chamber, looking much more in his element than he was behind a camera and obviously giving orders and details to the other men, who were clearly under-ranking agents. Sherlock briefly wondered what Mazari had told them, and a frown creased his brow at the crucial but unknown variables they represented. He would have preferred to involve as few people as possible—ideally he would just include himself, Caldwell, and Irene Adler—if for nothing else than containment purposes for when Mycroft inevitably came sniffing around.

He never granted any credence to grandiose conspiracy theories, the main reason (one of many, of course, besides the obvious fact that they were utter rubbish) being that such theories always involved vast numbers of people in various capacities. But since people were, as a rule, idiots, he simply did not find it credible that everyone hypothetically involved would be able to remain discrete. It simply wasn't feasible; more people always equaled an exponentially greater security threat. Someone, some time, would slip up some _how,_ and he was loath to risk it himself.

And yet he always strove for accuracy and exactitude in everything he did, and in this case absolute precision was more essential than ever before. And so in the interest of the video's authenticity, regrettably but necessarily more people needed to be included in his own conspiracy plot.

Leaving Irene's side, he strode over to Mazari and the man nodded in acknowledgement and shook his hand firmly, apparently holding no grudges over the dark purple bruise that had bloomed across the bridge of his nose from Sherlock's head butt the previous evening.

"Mr. _Sigerson_ ," he greeted briskly, acknowledging the alias with a slight inflection. He continued in accented but fluent English: "A pleasure to meet you again, under difference circumstances."

"Quite," said Sherlock flashing a genial half-smile, but eager to dispense with formalities and begin the process.

The Captain nodded briefly again, interpreting Sherlock's mood accurately, and gestured to his colleagues who straightened to attention, awaiting his instruction. They seemed willing enough, he noted, his eyes sweeping over them as he recited to himself: _two malleable and eager-to-please rookies, a sharpshooter, a martial arts training instructor, a transport driver, and a technician_. There were no outward signs of reservation or mistrust, and by all appearances they seemed rather compliant. That morning, Caldwell had reported that Mazari had carefully selected those to entrust with the mission, and Sherlock now felt somewhat assured that his criteria had been satisfactory. Still, he hated to rely on anyone besides himself, let alone this number of people.

As Sherlock took over operations, coaching the insurgent stand-ins on how he wanted them to behave, consulting occasionally with Mazari for authenticity, and reviewing a translation of the prepared statement that one of them men was to read before the 'execution', everything else fell away and he became completely engrossed in his preparations. Like a child racing gleefully between 'home-base' and the schoolyard during a game of tag, he darted back and forth from the scene of action and the camera's viewfinder to check the angles and ensure that his vision for the final recording would be logistically possible and as seamless as possible. _Catch me if you can, Mycroft,_ he chuckled to himself, and halfway through one of his rounds he became aware that he was grinning widely.

He mused smugly that somehow he had overcome the immense distraction of sex and sentiment to transition back to the work—he was disciplined enough after all, and that was extraordinarily reassuring and affirming. He smirked at himself; to be fair, retrieving breakfast hardly qualified as a challenging task needing his full attention, and so naturally the far more diverting subject of sex had pushed forward. But when it came to a duty that truly required focus and the entirety of his concentration, he was wholly capable of prioritising.

He'd always thought that he couldn't maintain who he was, do what he did, if he succumbed to base desires and trivial human diversions. He'd spent years cultivating his 'bad for brainwork' list, and sex and sentiment had been at the very top, followed by a copious number of items. And yet apparently the strength of his focus was proportional to the challenge before him; if he needed to be single-minded and fully engaged, he could be.

His grin flashed wider, but almost as soon as the realisation entered his mind he purged it with a slight shake of his head. It wouldn't do to be distracted by congratulating himself for not being distracted. Nonetheless, he was gratified that he was capable of switching gears so (apparently) seamlessly, and his personal self-estimation increased even moreso.

Admittedly ironically, at the thought of Irene he allowed himself a brief inquiring glance in her direction, and he spotted her standing stiffly in the corridor, her arms crossed and an inscrutable expression on her face. The combination of her very fine attire made shabby from the duration of her imprisonment, the impatient tension in her limbs, and the haughty way she held her head, imbued her with the fractured dignity of a deposed queen.

He supposed that if he were inclined towards metaphor he would contend that in a sense, she was. She was someone with a powerful will and strong personality, used to making her own agenda decisions and plotting her own strategies, yet for weeks she had been stripped of any autonomy whatsoever, and now she was relegated to the sidelines as someone else took over the reins. Moreover, it concerned something as essential as the future course of her life. Sherlock knew that as genuinely grateful as she may be to him for saving her life when she had been unable to do so on her own, she was now feeling as impatient, impotent, and frustrated as he would be if the roles were reversed. That awareness infused his work with additional weight, and he re-immersed himself into the task before him.

He beckoned to the driver waiting just behind The Woman, and the man rolled the wheeled stainless steel locker to Sherlock, who popped the metal clasps with relish, savouring the fact that science and physiological chemistry were universal and constant, no matter where in the world he happened to be. He knew that while the others might find this part of the process distasteful, it was entirely his area, and he found himself anticipating the challenge.

The body had come out of rigor mortis before he'd even procured it, and the previous morning Sherlock had administered an additional combination of joint massage and shots of a pH neutralising agent, which further increased the flexibility and suppleness of the muscles and ligaments. As the SSG agents looked on with a collection of blankly passive, interested, and mildly disgusted expressions, he and Mr. Jarwar lifted the chador-robed and shroud-hooded body from the container, and then, with the driver's assistance, Sherlock began to manipulate it into a kneeling position. Not for the first time during this trip, he wished that it were John who was by his side, struggling to keep his arms around the cadaver as it listed one way and then the other. But John couldn't and wouldn't ever know about this—for his own protection.

And for the fact that although he trusted John with his life, Sherlock didn't necessarily trust him to hide this lie from his brother should Mycroft ever run it by John to appraise his reaction, which was something Sherlock could easily imagine him doing for the sake of thoroughness. It wasn't that Sherlock thought that John was incapable of deception, it was just that Mycroft was unsurpassedly skilled at seeing through most pretense. As far as he was aware, only Sherlock had ever been able to trick him, and he hardly got away with every attempt at it. _Which is why this has to be flawless_ , he thought.

Sherlock finally rocked back onto his heels, a mild sheen of sweat on his brow, but a grimly pleased expression on his face. He had succeeded for the most part, although he had to use a length of rope to fasten the hands together behind the back (no matter, he would just bind Irene similarly) and the head wouldn't remain upright. That didn't pose a problem, either, though; one of the "insurgents" could simply pull Irene forward by the hair, and then when they made the switch he would continue to hold the body's head forward by the hair as well. It would be a logical move if dealing the blow to the cervical vertebrae—simple.

He'd have swung the blade himself without qualm, save for the fact that Mycroft would know him in an instant if Sherlock made a personal appearance in the video, and Captain Mazari was out of the question as well. He couldn't risk being recognised by other members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba group when the footage was released. Nor by Mycroft either, for that matter, since the elder Holmes was bound to interview him.

Sherlock surveyed his work, reviewing the figure with the same level of scepticism and minute attention to detail that he knew his brother would utilise, and he was conditionally satisfied. The rest was up to her.

In what he realised was an emergent pattern, the thought of The Woman immediately sent his eyes flicking over to where she'd been watching, but the doorway was empty and a brief but thorough scan around the room confirmed that she was not anywhere inside.

Without a word of explanation to the others he jumped lithely to his feet and strode to the doorway then beyond, before finally breaking out of the cool, dim gloom and into the bright desert sunlight, which caused him to momentarily stagger back a bit. Squinting and putting up a hand to block out the dazzling rays, he found her as soon as his light eyes had partially adjusted to the brightness.

She was leaning against the side of the building smoking, posing as if she were on a boardwalk in some Mediterranean resort town rather than the shambolic and crumbling pile that currently hosted them, and when he came out she looked over at him coolly, then returned to the Dunhill without comment. His hand immediately flew to his trouser pocket and to his astonishment the packet was short by yet another cigarette. When, and more importantly, _how_ had she managed that? he thought in amazement.

"Enjoying that?" he asked more as a declarative observation, leaning up against the wall next to her and draping his hands in his pockets.

He glanced over at her and was abruptly hit by a sense of warmth he had previously only affiliated with John, although this felt more layered and complex, and he knew he was experiencing the effects of his newly-discovered _sentiment_. And yet for the moment he didn't quell the feeling, but let it expand within him. He was already in a somewhat good-humoured mood from the smooth way operations were unfolding inside, and moreover, he felt much more benevolent towards her and the situation between them now that he knew he could multitask, and that the circumstances weren't necessarily as dire as he'd believed that morning.

"Immensely," she answered, drawing in the smoke slowly between lips that held only the very faintest trace of a wry smile. She tapped the end then looked over to him, meeting his eyes. " _Much_ more than I'm enjoying watching you choreograph my execution, I have to say. You know, I've dabbled in plenty of varieties of kink, but snuff films have never made it onto that list." She paused then offered him the cigarette, which he accepted.

"I know it may be difficult to experience that again," he told her, trying to determine her mood, "but I've been over it and over it, and if Mycroft doesn't have your body he's going to need some _other_ type of proof. It's the only way."

" _That's_ not difficult," she contradicted evenly, after he'd inhaled then passed the Dunhill back to her, and they'd stood next to each other in silence for a moment. "I feel conflicted. I know the effort and consideration that you've put into all of this and in one sense I'm grateful, but I detest passivity. And as I'm sure you can imagine, I'm not used to being the one being told what to do."

She handed the cigarette back to him again, and he concealed a small smile; he had actually been correct in his earlier assessment of her mood. She was still more of an enigma than anyone else he'd ever met, but perhaps he was becoming better at reading her due to increased familiarity.

"Yes. . . I can understand that," he said somewhat awkwardly, but honestly.

Suddenly she cut a glare at him and straightened her posture. "Oh stop condescending to me," she said impatiently, finally showing a spark of emotion. "It only adds insult to injury, and you don't need to manipulate me into doing what you want."

Or perhaps not, he blinked in surprise. Manipulate her? For once, he _hadn't_ actually been thinking in such a cynical way. Ironically it seemed that it was when his empathy was somewhat sincere that he couldn't pull it off, he thought, slightly chagrined. _Although_ , he admitted to himself, he hadn't exactly been a paragon of consideration that morning. _And now isn't the time to discuss my shift in perspective_.

Having gleaned this insight, he immediately recovered, and rather than admit that he'd been speaking earnestly, he lowered his tone. "Good, because it is the only way. Of course, _if_ you'd prefer to take matters into your own hands. . ."

"And spoil all your fun?" she said dryly.

"Well it would be excessively foolish and rash, of course, and without access to my resources you'd have no chance at all," he said, looking away from her with narrowed eyes, under the pretense of scanning the outskirts of the property. "You'd probably be dead within another week. But I wouldn't try to stop you, should you decide that you value your self-sovereignty more than your life." He wondered briefly if the blunt words were also lies, and a part of him answered that of course they were—and for more reasons than that her departure would undermine all his careful planning.

She grunted a soft chuckle at his statement and nodded, before taking one last pull of the Dunhill and then dropping it to the dusty ground. The mood between them seemed to relax. "As I said, I'm conflicted. I know you're right, but it doesn't mean I have to like it."

He studied her profile again, and out of his feelings of warmth grew that other unfamiliar, aching emotion he'd felt early in the morning when she'd temporarily let the mask fall. _Tenderness_ , he thought, striving as ever for clarity through classification. _Concern._ He wanted to touch her, forge some type of physical connection, but this time he suppressed that particular desire with some effort. This was a time for work, he reasserted to himself, and the only way to balance both his sentiment and his operation—without one costing the other—was to set and adhere to strict boundaries.

So instead he said, "This is only for a few more days. Then it's all up to you."

"A few more days?" she repeated, her perfectly arched brow raising. "Are you going to tell me what's going to take that long?"

"Yes, but not now," he replied, anxious to return to the others now that he sensed his focus wavering dangerously again. "We need to get started on this. Are you ready?"

She sighed and her crossed arms tightened. "This is exactly what I was talking about."

"I know," he said, and she nodded as though he'd apologised, which in a sense perhaps he had. He turned away from her to go back inside, but he suddenly felt her hand on his arm, firm and insistent.

"Just one more thing before we return," she said, and before he could fully face her again she had grabbed his lapels in both hands and was pressing her body against his so that he stumbled back slightly and hit the wall. Automatically his hands flew to her waist to steady his balance, and then she was raising herself onto her toes and her lips were on his, hard and defiant. She tilted her head and opened her mouth to his, her tongue demanding and then gaining entrance, before her hands lifted from his coat to each side of his face, grasping locks of his hair and pulling him further into her commanding kiss. But before he could respond in any kind—whether it was to push her away or (likelier) pull her closer—she had drawn back and there was already a foot of distance between the two of them. He felt winded and slightly stunned, and after a moment he abruptly shut his mouth when he became aware that his jaw was still hanging open.

"I just wanted to do _one_ thing of my own volition. . ." she smirked from over her shoulder as she walked around him and down the corridor.

* * *

Perhaps at one point Sherlock would have resented the snatched kiss and its potential to derail his focus, as he had resented (albeit for different reasons) the few kisses that had been pressed on him in his youth. But he had, after all, been desiring contact with her too, so instead it left him feeling energised in the same way he felt after making a particularly insightful connection during a case, or getting a result that took him closer to proving his hypothesis during an experiment. Like those situations, her kiss was indicative a greater whole, and though he couldn't afford to further analyse the nature of that 'whole' at the moment, at a cursory level it left him feeling invigorated. He tabled the concept for later consideration.

More importantly and pertinently, it seemed to have (at least temporarily) softened Irene and made her much more amenable and pliant to his instruction when they returned, and so even though the skin on his lips tingled slightly and he sensed his mind starting to wander away from this chiaroscuro chamber out to that sundrenched entrance, he wasn't irritated. Nonetheless. . .

As a mental exercise, he quickly ran through the elements by their atomic numbers, prime numbers only, backwards. _Lawrencium-mendelevium-berkelium-actinium-bismuth- gold-tantalum. . ._ he began intoning to himself in one fluid stream, and when he concluded the list of twenty-seven with helium sixteen seconds later, he felt poised and in control once more.

The actual filming progressed smoothly, with Sherlock taking a very active role between each take—articulating expressively and stepping into each man's role to actually demonstrate how he wanted him to behave—and Mazari served as assistant director, adding additional details to improve the legitimacy of the video where relevant. As Sherlock continued to accept the man's confident and steadfast help, he mused that as prepared as he thought he had been to do this on his own, the captain was an auspicious and invaluable resource. And that Caldwell must not be quite the imbecile he seemed, if he were able to secure his assistance.

Mazari's agents were equally useful, despite the fact that the only parts of their covered faces he could see, their eyes, reflected total bemusement in response to everything Sherlock said and did. Nonetheless, they followed his directions, and their cooperation (and discretion) were the only characteristics which at all concerned him.

 _And as for The Woman_. . . Sherlock thought, observing the tense figure on her knees. She was proving excellent in her leading role: stoic and yet vulnerable in a black chador again (though the small voice in his head—John's voice, as always—reminded him that she had undergone this actual scenario less than twenty-four hours previously, and so it _wasn't_ acting). Yet although she was slightly trembling, she remained indomitable throughout it all, including when the sharpshooter agent 'playing' the executioner shoved a hood over her head and then roughly jerked her head forward by her hair. At this point Sherlock finally stilled, a nauseated feeling settling in his lower abdomen and his lips tight across his teeth, and he had to admire her fortitude and strength. For the first time, it struck him that she was actually brave, not just impudently audacious.

Even when they had exchanged the living, breathing woman for her cadaver counterpart, and the sharpshooter had struck the shrouded head from the body with a powerful and brutal blow from a large talwar sword, she'd barely flinched beside him, despite Sherlock's intimate awareness that she'd had traumatic nightmares about the same-such fate only hours before. His hand reached of its own accord towards her, but it seemed that she detected the motion in her peripheral vision, because she slid one step away from him, looking forward with hard eyes and pursed lips. He let it drop to his side again, but the desire to touch her again still remained, as well as a lingering curiosity.

With one part of his attention he watched the action before him play out on the camera's screen, and with another portion he assessed her. Though admittedly his own behaviour had varied over the course of the morning, he doubted her actions were motivated by the same reasons, and hers seemed to vary by the minute. At one moment she was clinging to him in a demanding kiss and at the next, she didn't even want to accept a simple touch.

He ran through all the possibilities that occurred to him. _(1.) Does she still think that I'm acting condescending? (2.) Does she only want physical interaction when she is able to initiate it herself, since it is the one factor she can actually control at this point? (3) She stated that she's conflicted about this process; is the duality of her coldness and capriciousness reflective of that? (4) Have I lost her confidence after the way I behaved earlier?_ _(5) A combination of all or some of the above? (6) Something else entirely. . .? But_ what _._

He scrutinised her stiff and unyielding exterior closely, but could not determine a satisfactory answer. Studying her wasn't like solving problems in chemistry or mathematics with their rules and constants; it was more like approaching one of the 'soft sciences' like political theory or economics, with endlessly debatable variables, patterns, and trends that could never be definitively proven or disproven, only argued more or less persuasively. And he had never been particularly competent at those subjects.

Pausing his analysis, he reverted his attention to the demands of her so-called 'snuff video', which at that point called for the creation of blood splatters that would accurately reflect the decapitation of someone with an active cardiovascular system. With momentary merriment, he strategically scattered vials of contraband O- along the floor and across the clothing of the SSG men, before returning behind the camera and filming the final indoors portion, when the "insurgents" were to hold the head aloft triumphantly. But then, to his frustration, he had to reprimand the technician and half of the rookie set for acting unsuitably repulsed and they were forced to re-film the penultimate scene; he wanted to wrap it up as quickly as possible and get Irene away from this reincarnation of her murder scene. He may not be able to fully read or understand her, but despite her stoicism and refusal to appear affected by both the implied and real carnage, and contrary to what she'd originally said, he could at _least_ ascertain that the situation had begun to take its toll on her. And to his increasingly uncomfortable realisation, her distress elicited an alarming sympathetic response in him.

Scratch that, it was more than uncomfortable or alarming, it was damn near terrifying.

In Pavlovian response to any reference to The Woman, his eyes darted sideways towards her once more, checking her reaction in a way he'd never sought out anyone else's, not even John's. Her face was starkly pale with small flushed dots on each cheek, which made her elegant features stand out even more, and her eyes looked large and intense in her face. But she remained unmoving and rigid, staring transfixed at the scene before her.

Then, when he announced that it was time to film the burning of the body, she seemed to break from her reverie, and she turned on her heel without a word and headed towards front exit, her posture rigid and her hands clenched. He didn't see her again until they had finally concluded all the shots he wanted of the pyre almost two hours later, when he found her outside the front of the structure, back in her own clothes and the black fabric of the chador crumpled in a pile several feet from her feet. He visualised her peeling it off of herself in abject disgust the moment she'd passed out of view, and that image combined with her pinched, set face, made him quicken his pace towards her, and cup her elbow in his hand. "Are you all right?" he asked at once automatically.

She stared up at him, and for a moment her eyes seemed to shine, but she blinked and the moment was gone; the mask was fully in place again and she was apparently no longer willing to show any vulnerability in front him. Of course he couldn't be certain, but he thought that perhaps his awkward and insensitive actions of that morning had undone what had grown between them in the night and early dawn, and once more he had a pang of regret that he was the man that he was.

"How are you going to make that look realistic?" she asked, pointedly ignoring his question, as he had already realised she would. "I don't think Mycroft Holmes will buy it if one moment it's my figure, and then there's some pretext for cutting away or obscuring 'me' before the actual beheading. No matter how imaginative the segue, it's still something out of the first year of film school."

Sherlock's brows briefly creased at her disparaging words, and even more so from her acidic tone, but he replied, "Of course he wouldn't, but it's going to go through a rigorous editing process before Mazari releases online via the same means that the LeT would use. There won't be any segue."

"Don't tell me you're relying on someone here to edit the footage?" she rejoined sharply.

Sherlock scoffed and shook his head. "I know a man in London and I'll email him the digital files. He does very competent work; he won some sort of award a few years ago, supposedly prestigious. . . The Biffa, or Batta. . ? Not relevant. Anyway, he—"

"The _Bafta_?"

Sherlock quirked his mouth to the side as a noncommittal shrug; this too he had deleted, if he had ever really taken note of it in the first place. He suspected it was the latter.

"Well, that is slightly more reassuring," she said, a bit grudgingly to Sherlock's ears.

"As I said, he does very competent work," he repeated, momentarily stung that she would consider the commendation of some frivolous awarding body more valid than his own estimation, which was certain to be more discerning.

"And let me guess, he owes you a favour," she continued, a very small but seemingly genuine smile appearing on her lips.

"No," Sherlock answered, warming to that smile, as meagre as it was. He hesitated, then, sensing that he probably needed to make some sort of concession after his earlier callousness, he admitted, "He and I shared a room when Mycroft and DI Lestrade from the MPS press-ganged me into a narcotics rehabilitation program. He's assisted me with a few cases since then."

He observed her eyebrows flick upwards at his confession, but otherwise her face was impassive.

"His skills have been quite useful. . ." he continued, eyeing her face closely for, what, validation? Forgiveness? "It's remarkable how many people will confess when confronted with 'video proof' of their crimes, and you can also usually—not _always_ , but almost—conclude that those who don't are innocent," he said blithely, low albeit slightly forced laughter in his voice. "He's dreadfully boring, one of those sanctimonious sobers, but quite useful."

He waited again, but she only nodded in a distracted way, and before he could say anything else, Mazari was approaching them, and Sherlock sighed in irritation at the interruption, though he repressed his reaction with effort. The man had been a very valuable contribution to Sherlock's project so far, and he would continue to be, when Mycroft inevitably dropped by.

"The men have cleaned everything up, but you can clear the rest of the premises to your satisfaction if you'd like; we're heading out," he informed Sherlock. "I can expect the file from you shortly?"

Sherlock nodded briskly. "I'll email you the final copy, but remember: wait at least 24 hours before releasing it after that. I need to be back in London by the time the people looking for Ms. Adler make the connection."

The man nodded again, then looked into Sherlock's eyes and shook his hand solidly, before turning to Irene. She stood, and with what Sherlock realised was envy, he watched as she clasped the man's hands in both of hers, and thanked him for helping to save her life with an emotion-tightened voice and moist eyes. He suspected the sentiment was genuine as well, and he knew it was because Mazari was that simpler man. He was like John, and Sherlock never could be.

* * *

Back in the vehicle an hour later, after he had quickly ducked his head under the seat to confirm that the bundle of his coat was still in place, his mental processes finally became unencumbered by any serious thoughts of strategy or planning. The rest of the plan was simple and mundane; all the work required in its facilitation had been completed weeks ago. Now it was only a matter of Mr. Jarwar conveying them to the Karachi Ports, so that they could board the cargo ship that was to be their vessel away from the place, and head into international waters under their alternate identities.

That meant that he was free to turn his substantial brain-power onto the situation between The Woman and himself, and consider without interruption what it was that he even wanted, and whether what he wanted was necessarily the best course of action—but then, what _was_ the 'best' course of action, and why, and how significant was the discrepancy between what he wanted (if he could even discern that) and what he _should_ do?

He groaned internally, overwhelmed in ways that he never felt during even the most complex of his past cases. During those times he was challenged, yes, but he knew that with focus and perseverance he would be able to solve the mystery; he never felt unequal to the task or inadequate, as he did now. How had he felt so confident and assured in dealing with this issue only several hours prior? he wondered incredulously. Now he sensed himself shying away from such thoughts when he didn't have the luxury of a complicated, work-oriented challenge off which to balance them, and he understood that he'd had it backwards. It wasn't that sentiment was presently a dangerous distraction to his work, it was that the work had been a welcome distraction from this damnable sentiment.

In fact, he was so overcome with uncertainty that he didn't immediately notice that they were barreling down the wrong, though parallel, road until they had made significant progress along its course, and it took him yet another moment to focus his gaze and realise that his sense that something was awry related to exogenous rather than endogenous circumstances.

His eyes narrowed. "Why are we taking this route?" he demanded abruptly. "This is _not_ the most direct way to the ports. We discussed this, I wanted to take the RCD Highway all the way back from NH-25. This road simply travels parallel and then rejoins, but at the cost of some miles. It's a _waste_ of our time."

Jarwar caught his eye in the rearview mirror and nodded. "Yes, but this road joins the Makran Coastal Highway much sooner, Mr. Sigerson, and that is the route I am taking."

Sherlock _tsk_ ed then sighed in frustration. "Mr. Jarwar, the Makran Coastal Highway goes in the _opposite_ _direction_ of the ports."

"Yes. It does, sir," the driver confirmed, lifting his gaze off the road again to look into Sherlock's eyes in the reflection.

"Sherlock. . ." Irene murmured, her voice coloured with a tone of warning and her fingertips pressing onto his thigh, just as pangs of alarm began to resound in Sherlock's head.

But though he lurched forward with arms outstretched almost simultaneous to their shared realisation of danger, the articulated gate that separated the cabin of the vehicle from the container space crashed shut. His open palms slammed against the flat metal sheet uselessly, a split second too late, and his attempts to shove the gate up were futile. It was locked, and they were trapped.

Immediately he reached under the seat to check the bundle, and his suspicion was confirmed at once. The AK-47 was no longer concealed within his coat.

" _I knew it_ ," Sherlock snarled more to himself than Irene as he straightened, white-lipped and furious. "There will always be _someone_ involved in a conspiracy who spoils _everything_!"


	12. A Question of Honour (Part A: Sherlock vs. Mr. Jarwar)

The instant the reality of their situation struck him, Sherlock swiveled in his seat to try the door handle, and saw Irene attempting the same in his peripheral vision, but with equal futility. An instant later, he was grabbing his coat again and his fingers flew to an inside pocket, but the Swiss Army Knife he had placed there was gone as well, and his eyes flashed in fury. It may not have been an obvious contender against an AK-47, but it would have helped to break a car window, and if he and Irene managed to somehow team together and overcome their captor from behind it would've been rather effective when held against his throat as a threat. His last cursory thought, though distinctly unlikely to be of any use, was his mobile, which he did have on his person in a lining pocket of his jacket. He whipped it out and glanced down, but his lips tightened. Just as he'd suspected—no coverage whatsoever.

He clenched his fists in disbelief and outrage that someone had actually managed to deceive him in such a way, and adrenaline coursed into his veins to set his heart galloping with near-painful speed in his chest, and his mind was racing even faster. _Be careful what you wish for_ , he reflected angrily, remembering his thoughts from just a moment before. But he hadn't wanted anything like this. He had been so very close to getting them away and pulling off the entire thing flawlessly, so near to completing the most daring and intricate plan he'd ever constructed, all despite the entwined challenges of sentiment and lust.

He had not anticipated this, he acknowledged in biting dismay, not at all, and as tempting as it would be to lay the blame on how diverted he had been in the moments leading up to this betrayal, the fact remained that he had been assisted by Zairaan Jarwar since he'd arrived, and he had never suspected anything of the nondescript young man. Naturally he had carefully assessed his driver when they'd first met, and had been satisfied in his evaluation: he was nonviolent, non-ideological, and meek; not prone to rash action and easily malleable and compliant. _This_ made no sense at all; it jarred in the same way that his first impression of Mazari had conflicted with his role as cameraman, except that this was precisely the opposite situation.

That recollection made him immediately reassess this turn of events, to determine whether perhaps their abduction might also not be what it appeared—a Lashkar e Taiba, or LeT, plot. Yes, it seemed that way on the surface, but after all, his instincts had been correct about the SSG captain. . .

Almost at once an idea occurred to him, and a bitter grimace twisted his face. _Mycroft_ , he thought. Had he somehow put everything together? There had always been a risk of that, of course. As careful as Sherlock had been, and as immaculate as his plans and security measures were, his brother was undeniably brilliant and had access to infinitely greater resources. Had he approached Caldwell with his suspicions and promised to reinstate him to another prestigious assignment in exchange for information? Surely an offer like that would be enough for such a shrewd and ambitious man to sell out Sherlock and Irene Adler, and Mycroft was perceptive and manipulative enough to know it. Also, the scenario fit with Sherlock's perception of Jarwar's personality; if the Deputy High Commissioner gave him such an order, he would surely obey.

For Irene, though, it didn't matter if they were headed for LeT or British Government discovery; ultimately the result would be the same, and he could not allow that to happen. Not after everything he'd done to protect her. . . and especially not after everything they'd experienced together, he understood a moment later. He had a responsibility to see his mission through, and to ensure she would be safe.

Sherlock pounded on the locked gate once more with the side of his fist, venting his rage both at the turn of events and his own failure to anticipate them, and roared, " _Explain this,_ Jarwar!" He didn't know if the driver could even hear him, but he had to release some of the fury that was bubbling like white-hot magma in his chest, threatening to obliterate his ability to concentrate.

For a moment, only silence met his demand, but then Sherlock heard a caught breath, muffled through the metal divide, and his eyes narrowed and his brow knitted together in even greater aggravation.

"I'm s-sorry, Mr. Sigerson," the man stammered a moment later, and Sherlock knew his voice would have sounded small even without the expanse of steel that separated them. "I have no choice."

Sherlock ground his teeth and glanced to Irene, who was leaning slightly forward with her hands grasping the front of her seat, clearly assessing their surroundings for options. Her lips were pursed in concentration and her gaze swept methodically through their area, before lifting to meet his look. Her face was calm, but in those eyes he saw the same anxiety he felt. Still, he knew both of their gazes also reflected a mutual resolve to generate some sort of plan—neither of them would simply accept this sudden change in course.

Sherlock nodded sharply at her, then turned back to the front. " _Why_?" he growled forcefully in his lowest, most menacing voice. He leaned close to the divider, desperate for more information, for data _._ And Jarwar struck him as the type of man—of pawn—who could be either manipulated or bullied, or both, into sharing such information, even from Sherlock's position behind a metal barrier.

For a moment all he heard was heavy breathing, and incensed impatience threatened to overwhelm him. Had there been no separation between the two men, he knew he might have been unable to resist putting his hands around the driver's throat and squeezing. Instead they curled around the lip of the sealed gap so tightly that his fingernails drained of any colour.

Then, just when he was about to give up and shove back into his seat to consider their options without any information, the man said in a choked voice. "It's Mohsin. . ."

"Mohsin?" Sherlock asked sharply, cocking his head towards the divider again. Who the bloody hell was _Mohsin_? He did a quick search through his mental inventory but only came up with a single return, Mohsin Hamid, whom he promptly dismissed.

"The brother-in-law of my sister," Jarwar elaborated dismally a moment later as if in response to Sherlock's unvoiced question. "He's dead."

Sherlock's eyes darted back and forth as he considered this non-sequitur, but nothing occurred to him, except for the fact that this disclosure didn't seem to support his theory that Mycroft was behind this, unless it somehow spoke to Jarwar's motive to assist.

" _So_?" he questioned in a harsh tone, finding the driver's halting explanation intolerable.

"Mohsin—he was young, so dogmatic. . . You have to understand, some of my sister's in-laws are very devout and fundamental. . ." Jarwar said disjointedly, sounding defensive.

"Oh get _on_ with it!" Sherlock barked, but he suddenly saw with great clarity where this was going. Mohsin must have been the migraine sufferer Mazari had executed—the one Sherlock had loudly proclaimed killing, to cover for the SSG man and ensure the future of the mission. Now those very words were the ones compromising it.

He briefly and rather sarcastically considered the concept of fate again, thinking wryly that if he were a man of faith rather than a man of science, this would seem like the direct karmic counterbalance to his fortuitous relationship with Caldwell. Whereas his chance link to the current Deputy Head Commissioner in Karachi had _greatly_ facilitated Sherlock's mission, Zairaan Jarwar's fluke connection was potentially catastrophic. Regardless, he had to appreciate the ironic symmetry of it all.

"When I found out that - that he'd been shot, I thought you might be behind it, after everything you've been up to this week," the man continued in a stifled voice, re-diverting Sherlock's attention. "And then when I saw you with _her_ this morning it confirmed it, so I had to tell them." As if to convince himself, he repeated softly, "Mohsin was family, I _had_ to. . ."

No, it wasn't Mycroft behind it at all, Sherlock understood, but the driver _was_ a pawn caught up in another powerfully demanding circumstance nonetheless: he obviously felt compelled to uphold family honour in a tradition where such obedience was expected and demanded above all other considerations. Sherlock reflected on the tremendous contrast between Jarwar's family dynamic and his own, and in another context he might have found the extreme disparities somewhat amusing.

"I didn't kill your brother-in-law, Zairaan," Sherlock stated, using Jarwar's forename for the first time in an attempt to establish enough of a rapport so that the man would at least listen to his words.

It didn't seem to work.

"That's not what _they_ said," Jarwar replied in the tone of someone working hard to justify his actions, including to himself still. "And even if that were true, if you hadn't interfered—"

Sherlock immediately sought to exploit that evident hesitation. "If I hadn't interfered with Mohsin's participation in the murder of this woman? Yes, perhaps you're right—so inexcusable of me, trying to _save someone's life_ ," he spat in caustic irony, hoping that hearing the statement aloud would resonate with Jarwar's weak but seemingly ethical character.

He then lowered his voice and it took on a resounding quality. "Your _brother_ -in-law thought that way, and he died because of those beliefs. But you, Zairaan, you're not an extremist, you're not violent—this _isn't you_."

There was no response, and Sherlock shoved his fingers through his hair in frustration, wishing he could read the driver's body language. He was accustomed to engaging all of his senses when reading and manipulating someone; not having a visual on Jarwar was immensely restrictive, just when the stakes could not be higher.

He looked to his co-abductee. Her lips were still set tightly, but she looked lost in contemplation, and as per course, he had no insight into the content or nature of her thoughts. Wasn't she going to say anything. . .? As she herself had pointed out earlier, she liked being in control. Why then was she letting him direct the conversation now?

He paused, then turned his consideration back to which tact to take next. "What _is_ your stake in this, Mr. Jarwar, since this is so obviously out of character for you?" he pressed after a moment. "Is it money? Is the LeT offering a reward for us?"

Sherlock saw Irene briefly shake her head beside him, reacting to his and Jarwar's exchange for the first time, and though he agreed that blatant bribery wouldn't be effective in this situation, it wasn't his actual objective. Instead, it was only the means by which to try his primary aim. . .

If he could elicit a self-righteous and emotional enough response to the concept of bribery _,_ he might be able to redirect that indignation towards his and Irene's own predicament. After all, if Jarwar took a strong moral stand about this _,_ and assumed a position of ethical superiority, how could he then in good conscience hand them over to their deaths? Granted, it hadn't worked when Sherlock had bluntly pointed out Mohsin's involvement in Irene's attempted murder, but he thought that perhaps that had been a too heavy-handed and direct approach. He recognised that this too was a tenuous strategy, and rather simplistic, but there seemed to be little other recourse.

"Whatever it is, I can get you more," Sherlock continued, trying a confident, co-conspiring tone. "You've seen what I can do over the past week, what I can accomplish. You _know_ how powerful my connections are."

"I don't care about money," the man replied predictably, sounding petulant, but not particularly offended. He just seemed resignedly numb, which left Sherlock with nothing. He couldn't manipulate apathy. "Or power," Jarwar added listlessly.

"What, then, _what_?" Sherlock roared, finally losing patience despite knowing how dubious that tactic had been. Although he had summed up the driver as weak and suggestible, the man was showing considerable resilience against Sherlock's methods of persuasion, and it was profoundly maddening to find himself so impotent against someone he considered such an unworthy adversary. Especially when he had been so, _so_ close to completing the mission.

"You're not LeT," he said in a cross between a sneer and a snarl, "nothing of the sort; the British High Commission vetted you when you were employed, and _I_ vetted you. Stop this madness, Jarwar. _Let us go now_."

There was a long period of silence from the vehicle's cab, and Sherlock started to believe that the other man might be wavering; he even cast a somewhat sanguine glance towards Irene, although she returned his gaze with a doubtful expression of her own.

A moment later, her reservations were confirmed. "I'm sorry," the hollow-sounding response came through the metal gate. "No I don't support LeT and I didn't condone Mohsin's decision to join. But now he's dead because of what you did, and it's too late because _they_ already know all about you." His voice jumped slightly up in pitch as the he blurted out, "I don't want to hurt you, but where I come from family and honour are everything, and must always come first. Even now." Jarwar sounded miserable, absolutely _wretched_ , but he also sounded resolute.

Sherlock slid wordlessly back into his seat, still somewhat furious yet also partially satisfied that he now had a comprehensive understanding of their circumstances. Although apparently Jarwar's conscience hadn't allowed him to go as far as to defy his family obligation and release them, at least he'd felt the need to justify himself to them—thereby briefing them on their situation.

 _Relatively speaking, this is actually very good news_ , he assured himself thoughtfully. He would opt to face the LeT over a furious and officious Mycroft Holmes any day. And moreover, if they did manage to escape this—which they obviously would. . .somehow _—_ then he could still trick everyone who mattered into believing that Irene Adler had indeed been executed. She would still be able to make a new life for herself. Conversely, if it _had_ been Mycroft then all his work of the past few months would have been for naught. His brother may not have actually placed her under any sort of arrest himself (too much effort, it wasn't his style) but he would know she was out there, and so she could never be safe.

But while this was the preferable of the two options, it was obviously considerably less than ideal.

All right. _Data processed; time for action_. Sherlock's eyes systematically swept through the interior of the car, measuring the potential usefulness of everything he saw, either as a weapon or implement of escape, but then almost as quickly dismissing them. Their options were extremely limited; the only object of any promise he saw was the coil of rope from which he had cut lengths in order to tie up both Irene and the cadaver. If they managed to get close enough to Jarwar without him shooting them, they could bind him and take him to Mazari to let the SSG deal with him. And Sherlock felt confident that simply turning them over to the LeT was traumatising and difficult enough to Jarwar; he highly doubted the driver would be capable of pulling the trigger to kill them himself. That was perhaps their trump card.

He turned to Irene and lowered the volume and timbre of his voice so that it nearly blended in with the hum of the vehicle's motor. "We're traveling approximately seventy-four miles per hour on a motorway," he observed. "If we attempt to escape from the car at these speeds we'll almost surely be killed, or at least so incapacitated that he would be able to stop the car and recollect us. Still, we should be prepared to break a window in case we do come to a stop and can ascertain a place where we're able to take cover."

"I've come to the same conclusion," Irene murmured, speaking for the first time since the gate had crashed down in front of them, and Sherlock felt strangely but immensely warmed and reassured by the sound of it. "The weapon is, of course, a concern, and while I judge him as the type who couldn't actually use it against us, I'd prefer not to challenge that."

"That's assuming we're even able to break the glass, which will be obviously difficult since it's been tempered," Sherlock pointed out. "And I can't detect anything that would quite work."

"Ah. But I _can_ ," she said quirking a smile, and her hands lifted upwards towards her face. For a moment Sherlock didn't follow, but as soon as her fingertips reached around her earlobe, he understood the principle, but he couldn't see how she could execute it.

She unfastened the screw-back post of one of her large marquise cut diamond stud earrings and enclosed it in her palm, then leaned down and slipped out of one of her red-soled heels, turned it upside down, and secured it between her knees.

"Ah," Sherlock said, and he looked up at her in admiration. "You're creating a hammer, with the diamond as the head and the vamp and quarter as the lever."

"Yes. It would be more effective if I were able to reverse the stone in its setting so that the point faced outward, but since we don't have the tools for that, hopefully its strength and the force of the blow will be sufficient."

Sherlock cursed the confiscation of his Swiss Army Knife again, but thought that the plan had great promise anyway. "That's rather good," he complimented, observing her work.

She smiled in response as she concentrated on driving the point of the earring's post into the stiletto heel. "Just call me MacGyver," she murmured, then laughed softly at his blank expression. "Never mind, just an American series I watched as a child. . ."

He'd never heard of it and so he didn't understand the context or humour of her comment, but the mention of her childhood and the reference to America set off a cascade of old questions in his mind. . .

Very initially after they had last parted ways, he had thought that she was a 'solved' mystery: he had found out her shameful secret and exposed it, and that was that. But as the days wore on, he realised that it was hardly that simple— _she_ was hardly that simple; there was still so much about her that he didn't comprehend. And so he had found himself progressively more and more obsessed with understanding her, and in particular he burned with curiosity about her background. How had she become who she was, the way she was? Had she had an upbringing similar to his own? How were they so very alike, yet polar opposites in so many other ways? How and _why_ had she developed feelings for him?

The majority of his free time not spent planning her future was spent investigating her past—or at least attempting to. He had failed spectacularly, and it was another way in which she was hidden to him. And so the more walls he hit regarding her origin, the more dedicated he became to finding her, as if his quest for data in the 'lab' was inconclusive and so he'd have to go to the 'field'. (In retrospect it was _so_ glaringly obvious that she had planted all his leads for him; if she'd wanted to erase her trail from him, she could have, just as she'd erased her past.) Still, all that time. . .had he been focusing on databases and media archives of the wrong country?

Or was it just a throwaway comment? There was crap American telly on all the time, after all.

He was abruptly drawn out of his internal conversation when Irene made a small sound of triumph and grinned: the point of the earring had penetrated the hard rubber, and it was only a matter of screwing in the post. Sherlock watched her, and thought that if this succeeded and they managed to get to safety, he would just _ask_ her about her past outright. They had disclosed so many other things to each other in the past day, perhaps she would share this, too.

But before she was able to complete the final step, the car swerved off the main motorway into a much narrower strip of unpaved road that cut a straight line across a wide dusty plain, with not so much as a boulder in sight.

Sherlock exchanged a dismayed look with Irene, which turned to one of greater concern when the car began to slow before they had a chance to agree on a strategy.

The moment the vehicle rolled to a complete stop, Jarwar leapt from the cabin with the key in his hand, the AK-47 strapped across his chest, and a mobile at his ear, and he walked several metres to the side of the road, until his conversation was out of range. Still, Sherlock and Irene remained very much in view and in range of the rifle, which was now pointed directly at them.

Sherlock strained to hear the words but all he could make out were the sibilants, and he wasn't nearly competent enough in Urdu to be able to read the man's lips. Nonetheless, it wasn't difficult to deduce the topic and purpose of the conversation.

"Better finish it," Sherlock said through barely moving lips. " _He_ might have reservations pulling the trigger, but I can guarantee that none of his associates will, and it's obvious he's ringing for them to collect us now."

Without looking down at her progress, Irene gazed straight ahead as her fingers completed the revolutions of the screw-back post into the heel until the stud finally came to a stop, imbedded firmly into the stiletto. They looked at each other grimly before Sherlock cast a covert glance towards Jarwar, who was still engaged in conversation, though watching them closely.

"Break it on your side and then as soon as possible reach through to try the door handle, and we'll take cover behind the car," he said.

"Yes," she agreed, then added, "But not yet."

Sherlock nodded almost imperceptibly. Despite the time constraints, they still needed to act prudently, and since they only had one chance, timing was everything. Every second's head-start they had over their captor was critical, and right now his eyes remained fixed on them.

The seconds grew into minutes, and the wait and inaction were torturous to Sherlock. He expected a convoy of vehicles to turn off the motorway at any moment, and couldn't think of a plan to address such a contingency. Jarwar made an ongoing series of calls, but continued to always, throughout his conversations, watch them intently, and Sherlock felt ablaze with impatience.

"I saw that you have your mobile, do you—" Irene said softly from the side of her mouth, breaking the fraught silence as they both watched Jarwar in their peripheral vision, perfectly still and almost unblinking.

"Yes, but it's useless. No signal," Sherlock interrupted immediately through equally stiff lips, faintly offended. Didn't she think he would have utilised his phone by now, had he been capable of it?

"I know," she replied steadily. "But do you still have _mine_? It has a quad-band GSM system, so it should work here."

After a slight hesitation, Sherlock admitted, "No." There was a tinge of regret in his voice, and he was irritated that a feature of his plan that he'd previously considered especially elegant was now serving to undermine their safety. "Mazari has it now. One of his men is going to drop it off anonymously in front of the British High Commission the day your execution video is released, to corroborate your identity. They'll use a vehicle known to the SSG to be LeT, so that when my brother checks video surveillance around the building, everything will be consistent."

"It's fine, we don't need the phone," Irene said, shaking her head slightly. "It would've been useful, but it's not necessary. . . I have a plan."

Sherlock's eyebrows shot up automatically, but he did mange to suppress his impulse to whip his head around to her.

"Tell me," he breathed in a low exhale, but she shook her head again.

"I can't just now, you'll have to see it as it plays out," she answered softly, and Sherlock felt incredulous. She was going to pull a power-play like this when their lives were in danger?

Irene apparently read his indignant disbelief in his rigid posture and tight lips, because she placed a hand on his wrist and squeezed slightly. "Just trust me, Sherlock," she murmured, and to his utter shock, he did. He was reluctant, but he did: both in her intentions, and in her ability to pull something off.

It was unprecedented for him to have faith that anyone else could do something as well as he could (literally, he couldn't recall such a thing ever happening before), but in this case he believed it might actually possible. He couldn't deny that she _was_ remarkable, and besides, it wasn't as if he had made any notable progress with the man, himself.

They fell back into silence, and after he spent a lengthy amount of time trying to determine what her plan could possibly be, he gave up and his thoughts turned more bitter, admonishing himself for his unforgivable negligence of that morning. It was incredible that he had not detected the signs of anxiety and apprehension that a man like Jarwar certainly would have displayed since he'd seen Irene by Sherlock's side at the hotel that morning. If he had, they wouldn't even need The Woman's plan; they'd have never found themselves in such a situation in the first place.

He narrowed his eyes at that thought, recalling his state of mind during that ride. Perhaps he shouldn't have been so hasty to dismiss sex as a responsible distraction after all—at least in part. After all, there had been no cues _to_ read prior to this morning; Jarwar had had no motive to harm him prior Mohsin's death the night before, so Sherlock hadn't been remiss.

 _Well, not until today, that is_ , he thought bitterly. Yes, he had cleared his thoughts of that topic by the time they'd reached their destination, but in that time, how many indicators had he already overlooked?

"This isn't your fault," Irene murmured a moment later, correctly judging the tone of his silence and his tense body language. "You couldn't have anticipated his connections."

Sherlock grunted in noncommittal response. "But I should have been able to observe that something was off today," he said in barely muted anger. "I spent the entire morning and afternoon in his presence, and I completely missed the signs. _Stupid, so stupid,_ " he hissed.

"You were focused on all the details of filming a realistic execution—something that has to pass muster with Mycroft Holmes, for God's sake—and you'd already been with the man for what, a week?" Irene asked. "You even told me in as many words that he could be trusted; for you to actually verbalise that you must have felt fairly confident. So why would you waste time on him, when there were so many other things to—"

" _Don't_." Sherlock snapped the word, lashing out in his frustration and anxiety, while a more detached part of him recognised the irony of their traded positions. Now that she was the one attempting to console him, he understood why she hadn't wanted to hear it either; they were so alike in their pride and the high standards to which they held themselves. For his part, he didn't want his carelessness and complacency to be mitigated, or to be absolved. He judged himself harshly and felt that any attempt to justify his lapse in thoroughness only made it seem as if it were understandable or somewhat acceptable. It was neither.

"There's really no excuse," he continued in a flat tone, still monitoring Jarwar carefully from the corner of his eyes. "I would've never missed it if I hadn't been so utterly distracted this morning."

Irene's eyes narrowed. "I see," she said after a beat of silence, but before Sherlock could formulate a response, a shout interrupted him.

" _Ai_! Stop talking and keep _faced_ _forward_ ," Jarwar cried, holding the mobile away from his ear and jabbing the rifle towards them. He was obviously attempting an intimidating and forceful voice, but he sounded like a frightened child trying to sound brave instead.

Still, Sherlock thought it wise not to antagonise the man since they needed to lull him into a false sense of security, and so they resumed their silence and continued to wait for Jarwar to show a moment of distraction.

It was terse silence yet again, Sherlock noted as he continued to watch. For such similar, intelligent, and ostensibly compatible people they seemed constantly prone to miscommunication and discomfiture. _Why?_ he attempted to understand so as to give his mind something to do as they waited, else it be consumed with impatience and even a trace of fear. _Was this normal between two people in a sexual relationship? Too much mutually invested? Too much of the ego made vulnerable?_ Or was he simply incapable of the empathy required to connect to someone in such an intimate way?

 _No_ , he immediately dismissed. He might have previously believed that (or a variation thereof: not incapable per se, but unwilling, uninterested), but if he had learned anything in the past few days, it was that despite the present manifestation of the consequences he had always feared, he was still apparently both capable and willing. Even now, when he was confident that they wouldn't be sitting here in mortal danger had he not been so sidetracked that morning, for some inexplicable reason he still didn't—couldn't—regret what they had done (even if he did 'do' regrets).

His thoughts were abruptly interrupted when Jarwar's voice raised again in some sort of emotion—but now it was directed towards the party on the other end of the mobile. At the same time, his hand left the trigger to gesticulate in the air, and as if choreographed, both hostages sprang into simultaneous action without even a second's indecision.

Irene clasped her hand tightly across the upper span of the shoe and swung in one long arc, making shattering contact with the window, which splintered into thousands of raindrop-sized shards upon impact, as Sherlock lurched forward to shield her with his body, not risking the chance that they were incorrect about Jarwar using the weapon.

As soon as she penetrated the glass, Irene thrust her arm through the empty pane and wrenched the door handle so hard that Sherlock could see the cords of her tendons straining, but it wouldn't open from the outside either. Without further hesitation, she dove head first through the space and dropped to the ground behind the car.

Ignoring Jarwar's shouts, Sherlock was about to do the same, but then a spray of bullets—he estimated just over a third of the magazine in the one-second burst—exploded into the side of the car. Instinctively he dropped to the ground, even while he understood that the man was just trying to intimidate them.

 _Damn_ , Sherlock thought. If only Jarwar had held his finger on the trigger for two more seconds he would have been out of rounds.

Still, they could use that to their advantage. If they baited him into shooting again, it was possible he would expend the entire magazine if he didn't realise how rapidly AK-47s expended ammunition. Conversely, if he _were_ aware, then he would want to preserve the bullets for something really significant, and they would be able to have slightly more flexibility. The problem was, _which was it_? He was inclined to believe it was the former, but it was impossible to be certain at this point.

Breathing hard, he called to Irene, "You all right?"

"Yes," he heard her confirm from outside the car. "You?"

"Yes," he grunted shortly. On his hands and knees he crawled backwards through the glass debris to the side of the car closer to Jarwar, then flattened himself against the interior and risked a glance over his shoulder through the window to determine the man's position.

Jarwar had crossed half the distance between the side of the road and the vehicle, apparently hesitant to come closer and risk ambush from Irene, and the two men made direct eye contact. Sherlock's former driver no longer resembled the bland and mild-mannered man of the past week. His eyes were now wild and conflicted and his hair was standing in peaks where he had clearly run his fingers through the locks in stress and agitation. But his hands were clamped tightly on the gun, and he circled warily around the front of the vehicle, looking for Irene, whom Sherlock heard slowly edging clockwise as well, keeping the car between her and the gunman.

Several threads of possible plans ran through his head like streaming data, but his next move wasn't apparent yet; it all depended on what happened in the upcoming moments, how Irene initiated her idea, and how Jarwar conducted himself. Sherlock concentrated all of his significant mental acuity on the driver, waiting for any suggestion as to whether he would carelessly fire and burn through the cartridge in an attempt to control them, or seek to preserve the munitions, giving Sherlock and Irene more short-term flexibility. He rather hoped it was the former, but had no idea how, or _if_ , either option figured into Irene's design. Ah, it was _so bloody frustrating_ not to be aware of her intentions!

"Come out," Jarwar said, his voice cracking and tremulous. "Come out or I _will_ fire. I mean it! They won't care who kills you, as long as you end up dead."

 _Oh_ please _do fire, we all know you won't aim for us_ , Sherlock thought sardonically, although he also knew it was a bluff and didn't give any real insight into the course Jarwar would take. Still, he almost wished _something_ would happen, because at the moment they were all frozen in place, as if on stage before the curtain was raised.

 _On with the show_ , he thought ironically with a small smirk to himself, but he didn't have to wait long.

As Sherlock and Jarwar looked on, Irene rose slowly from behind the car as if giving herself up, the expression on her face cold as Absolute Zero.

Her strategy had been set in motion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Jim M. also used a diamond to smash through glass in TRF so I waffled on this, but given that Irene always wears those same marquise-cut earrings and they were locked in a car stripped of any other useful resources (Jarwar isn't a /total/ moron), the options were limited. I do regret that there's overlap, but I felt that it was 'realistic' to the situation and what Irene would do. Plus the idea that she used her diamond earring and a Christian Louboutin pump to break out of captivity amused me and so I wanted to use it, hehe. Badassery, Irene Adler style!
> 
> (And in my mind, I like to think that Sherlock had a moment of flashback when he saw the Moriarty footage and said, "Not tougher than crystallised carbon. . ." :)
> 
> Thanks, everyone, for reading, and if you have any comments, reviews, or feedback for me I'd love to hear them!


	13. A Question of Honour (Part B: Irene vs. Mr. Jarwar)

Her poised and coolly insolent stance threw Jarwar for a moment, and he stood paralysed, gaping at her. He probably thought that she had given up too easily, and of course Sherlock knew that he was right to be suspicious.

"Okay," he said after three long seconds of standoff, then motioned jerkily at the vehicle with the barrel of the rifle. "N-now get back in with him. In the car. _Slowly_!"

Irene didn't move, and Jarwar continued to stare, his mind obviously racing to determine her strategy. In the car, Sherlock was doing the same.

Being separated could be a very good thing, tactically, but what was her angle? And what could _he_ do to help facilitate her plan? He scrutinised her carefully to ascertain whether she was giving him any cues through her body language, but all he could read was the same message she was overtly sending to their captor: calm and assured defiance, with just a glimpse of contempt beneath.

" _Did you hear me_?" Jarwar cried frantically, looking and sounding as if he were close to tears. "I said, get IN!"

Still she remained statue-still, and the man flinched as if the weapon were pointed at him rather than vice-versa. Then, seeming to gather the last remaining resolve he possessed, he straightened, and said in a passably threatening voice, "Get in the car, or I kill your friend. On the count of three."

Sherlock's head swiveled back to Irene as if he were viewing a tennis match, like those in Wimbledon to which Mummy had dragged him until he'd been old enough to refuse. He wasn't particularly concerned with the threat, just curious to see how Irene would respond to it.

And for the first time, she did react to the man, but only to look over at Sherlock with complete detachment and indifference.

"Th-three—" Jarwar started, and droplets of sweat began condensing on his forehead.

"I don't care what you do to him," she interrupted dispassionately, finally speaking, and Sherlock was reminded of the woman on FlyAway Airlines Flight 007. "Besides, if you shoot him, you'll probably use up the last of your bullets, and then you'll have no leverage against me."

The man's jaw dropped and he convulsively looked down at the weapon in shock. _Ah, so it had been the former, then_ , Sherlock thought. He might have previously preferred for Jarwar to carelessly expend the ammunition, but it was certainly preferable to know where they stood. (And it was smart to give the increasingly desperate man an additional reason not to fire, while he was pointing the weapon at Sherlock.)

"I detest him," Irene continued, and Sherlock realised that the look of contempt had been designed for himself, not Jarwar. "So if you think that that threat is going to make me do as you ask, you're wrong."

There was a moment of total silence as her words hung in the air, and Jarwar gaped at her.

"You're—this is a bluff," the driver said after he'd recovered, shaking his head. "He saved your life, he's your friend."

For once, both men were in perfect accord; it was obviously a bluff. Sherlock had tried his hand at talking them out of their situation, and now Irene was taking her turn. Still, she was succeeding in keeping the man somewhat distracted, and so with one ear Sherlock listened to the unfolding conversation, while he diverted the rest of his attention to their surroundings, so that when she needed him to act, he'd be familiar with every possible option.

Irene's face was a mask of incredulity. " _Friend_?" she repeated, her eyebrows raising in sardonic disbelief. "Mr. Sigerson doesn't _have_ friends, as he would probably admit to you himself." She glanced derisively at him again, then turned her blue eyes back to Jarwar. "He doesn't care about anyone or anything except the thrill of his own accomplishment and the feeding of his ego. He wanted to see if he could do it, nothing more. My survival was only pertinent insofar as it meant he won."

Sherlock had to admit that her words stung—both the words themselves and the total contempt with which she said them. Even if it were part of her strategy, he recalled what he'd said about a lie based in truth being the best kind, and wondered how much of this she really did believe. Some of it at least, he knew, and that realisation ached somehow.

Jarwar still looked unconvinced. "You would be dead already if not for him," he pointed out, surreally taking the role of Sherlock's temporary defender.

The icy resilience seemed to go out of her at that point, and she sagged against the car, causing Sherlock to cast a questioning glance her way. What was her endgame, here? Two immediate possibilities occurred to him, which he reviewed and assessed rapidly.

 _(1.) She'll play the role of the 'distressed damsel', lulling Jarwar into a false sense of security so that she can get close enough to get the gun away from him. Jarwar will either:  
(a.) Be so surprised by the abrupt switch in personas that he'll be unprepared to fight her properly.  
(b.) See Irene as such a helpless female figure that he'll be __**unwilling**_ _to properly fight her for it._  
(c.) Fight her for it nonetheless (this would be surprising given his nature—albeit not impossible given his current desperation), and she would be able to fire off the remaining rounds off of the gun.

 _(2.) Same damsel in distress pretense, except this time she'd depend on his meek/weak nature to compromise for her own release, which would enable her to:_  
(a.) Contact Mazari somehow for back-up. (Does she have his contact information? Perhaps I can tap out his mobile number, though that will take ages, and will only work if she's listening for it from the outset. . .)  
(b.) Get a vehicle herself and drive it directly at Jarwar to draw his fire. (But could result in too many adverse outcomes; too risky for her as the driver).  
(c.) Get a weapon herself. (Highly improbable, unless she can access my luggage in the hotel's checked baggage room—no time for that, assuming she'd even make it back to the hotel).  
(d.) Conclusion: This plan has insurmountable flaws due to the difficulty/impossibility of certain resources and the constraints on our time. Preferable that she takes 1a, b or c, or another alternative that I haven't anticipated.

The entire inventory took less than seven seconds, and when he refocused on Irene, she was just starting to speak again, her voice heartbreakingly and extremely convincingly shattered. Actually, the bluff was developing quite nicely in her competent hands, Sherlock thought.

"If not for him, I would've never gone through that hell at all," she murmured softly. "He betrayed me and almost got me killed, just for his own fleeting satisfaction of victory." She gave Sherlock a look of the deepest scorn. "Please, let me go. You can have him. It's him you want, really."

Sherlock frowned slightly; besides the continued criticism of his character, which was more unpleasant than he cared to admit despite its ultimately constructive purpose, he hoped that this was a temporary diversion, rather than her ultimate goal. Option #2 had seemed quite untenable.

Jarwar appeared momentarily confused, then shook his head with his eyes lightly closed. "No. No, I can't. . ." Sweat was streaming down his face in rivulets now, Sherlock saw, and he knew that Irene was doing a far better job at challenging his integrity than Sherlock ever had. The man was utterly torn. Trusting Irene to continue capably, Sherlock reverted his attentions to their surroundings again, analysing how he could use any impending distractions to their advantage.

Meanwhile, Irene's voice became even softer, and higher. "Please Zairaan," she murmured. "Did you know that I have a family? I have a son. I can see family means everything to you—it means everything to me, too. I would do anything to see him again."

Sherlock's chin jerked up from his assessment and he glanced sharply at Jarwar. This was a wholly unexpected digression, but it was evidently a direct hit.

The man gaped at her in horror, and then momentarily squeezed his eyes shut in anguish. "You—you do?"

Tears had sprung into Irene's eyes now, and Sherlock was duly impressed with her performance. "Yes, but that didn't stop this man from putting his mother in danger. But I'm a good woman, Mr. Jarwar, I don't deserve this."

Even Sherlock, who absolutely knew better, almost believed in that moment that she really was a good woman—not in Sherlock's sense of the term (he didn't have one), but Jarwar's.

" _I_ heard you were a whore!" he said in a desperate outburst—an obvious and clumsy attempt to hold on to his previous narrative, one in which he fully understood how to act and what to do. "That's what they all said," he added more softly a moment later, as if embarrassed.

"I swear on my life, I have only ever known one man," Irene avowed with perfect earnest sincerity, and Sherlock's lips quirked in wry amusement at the multiple layers and types of irony in the statement.

Jarwar peered at her suspiciously, then his brow smoothed; he believed her. And why wouldn't he? It was the truth, in a way. But besides the lie of the child, what else was sincere? Sherlock wondered. She was so utterly convincing; too convincing for comfort. Her words struck him like blows, and resonated with a dreadful ring of plausibility.

"But. . . you would just leave him here? You could accept that?" He seemed sceptical that a supposedly 'good woman' could do such a thing, but Irene had the perfect response ready.

"I didn't want it to come to this, no," she said hoarsely, looking pained. "Of _course_ I want for us both to escape, but you're obviously too good for that. So now I need to put my family first. You understand that, don't you Zairaan? Or else you'd never be here now. Sometimes you have to do what must be done to protect your family."

It was a potent combination of flattery, fostering empathy with Jarwar through shared values, and appealing to his sense of honour, and Sherlock could tell that her words were having a significant effect on him. His posture was relaxing, the muscles in his face were slackening, and the gun was slightly drooping in his arms.

Sherlock marveled at how perfectly she had understood the driver, and how she really could grasp the nature of a man, and use that knowledge to manipulate him to get exactly what she wanted. When they had first met he hadn't anticipated her level of skill (to his detriment), and so he hadn't been entirely cognisant of her process. But now that he was aware of it, it was utterly fascinating to watch her in action.

Fascinating, yet also slightly disturbing—she was so utterly persuasive.

Suddenly an unbidden and unwelcome thought flashed into his mind. _How can I be sure that she isn't manipulating_ _ **me**_ _now, still? That she never stopped?_ He frowned—where had that suspicion come from? What could possibly motivate her to do such a thing?

 _Isn't it obvious?_ the thought elaborated, a small but persistent voice whispering in the back of his mind. _Protection, resources for a new life so that she's not constantly on the run_. _What greater motive could there be than ensuring one's survival?_

Sherlock suppressed the voice—this doubt was just a byproduct of how truly convincing she was, which was a _good_ thing. Her progress was evident: Jarwar was now nodding, his eyes still slightly insane, but starting to focus on Irene's face.

"Besides, _he's_ not a good man," Irene was pointing out in her soft, 'good woman' voice. "First he put me in danger just for his own thrill, and now it's his fault Mohsin is dead, and he doesn't even care. You heard him, he won't even accept any responsibility for it." At this point Jarwar nodded even more vigorously.

"He has _no_ _idea_ what family means, Zairaan, and he never will," she continued. "He has none, except for a brother whom he loathes. He could never understand the sacrifice that you're making for your brother-in-law." Her voice became even gentler, and somewhat alluring. "But I understand how hard this is for you, how much you don't really want to hurt me."

 _Smart, actually_ , Sherlock mused, _to ally herself with Jarwar_. _The two 'principled', 'family-orientated' individuals mutually teamed up against Sherlock Holmes, the unfeeling, uncaring sociopath_. But then, once she'd gained Jarwar's trust. . .

 _As she's gained mine?_ the voice representing his more cynical side asked pointedly, and he bit the inside of his lower lip and narrowed his eyes. He normally delved into every thought and intellectual impulse he had, but _this_ he was determined to ignore. It wasn't useful or constructive, and would only needlessly distract him.

"He _is_ horrible," the driver said, seizing gratefully on some sort of justification. "I've been taking him around all week and I see how he is, so cold, so demanding."

"Yes," Irene said in an almost seductive voice, and her eyes seemed to caress Zairaan Jarwar, looking at him like there was no other man on the planet. Sherlock was uncomfortably reminded of the context in which he had recently received that gaze himself, and he felt himself flush as yet another tendril of doubt crept into his mind.

He shoved it away in fury. She'd had no way of knowing he would choose to come rescue her, and set all of this in motion. The idea was absurd.

 _But somehow she_ did _,_ his cynical self contradicted a moment later _. She ultimately saw through my performance in front of Mycroft and grasped how I felt before even I did, and that's why she left me all those breadcrumbs, how she was able to orchestrate her own rescue, using me. She anticipated my actions because she knows my nature and how to manipulate it, just as she's doing to Jarwar now_.

Sherlock had already realised that she had played a long game, and had won it. But what if her objective actually had nothing to do with any _sentiment_ , but was about ensuring her own protection? What had Mycroft said she'd done before, to manipulate him into getting her what she wanted? _"_ _The promise of love, the pain of loss, the joy of redemption. Give him a puzzle and watch him dance_."

Had Sherlock made an identical error in judgment _again_? Had she first manipulated him into thinking that she was interested in him and planted seeds to make him actually develop feelings of his own, then disappeared to face unknown but inevitable danger, and then left him the puzzle of where she was, leaving just enough clues to keep him intrigued? And then, how he _had_ danced. . . He blanched and his heart started to pound.

No. No, he refused to believe it. He hadn't ruled out the possibility that she had feelings for him—far from it in fact—so there was no reason to suspect her motives until it was the absolute last resort.

( _But by then it might be too late.)_

A sense of deep apprehension began to rise in his chest—both at his lack of involvement in or control over the situation, and his fledgling uncertainties regarding Irene Adler.

"He doesn't consider how his actions will affect others; he's only ever concerned with himself, and because of that, no one will miss him," she was continuing in the ringing, commanding tones of a pastor presiding over a congregation, emphatic with conviction. "No one cares about him. But _I_ have a _child_."

Jarwar looked stricken. "But what would I do with you?" he asked huskily, his voice almost a whisper. The dynamic had fully reversed, and now she had _him_ practically begging—something at which she was all too good, Sherlock thought, his throat dry. His eyes darted once more around the interior of the vehicle but even all the pieces of broken window would be useless; the shards were small and harmless dull squares of tempered glass.

"Just tell them I was in the other car," Irene suggested, asserting the firm but gentle authority he obviously desperately needed.

"I already told them I have you!" the other man lamented, pathetically remorseful, as if the act had been a deep and personal betrayal.

But this Irene was a kind and tolerant mistress, Sherlock observed; she was feeding Jarwar _exactly_ what he needed to hear, in the exactly correct dosages, and at the exactly appropriate time. It was so deftly efficient that it was chilling.

 _She_ was chilling, and he was conflicted. Should he continue to go along with her unknown plan, trusting that his misgivings were just a result of how very skilled she was in her current manipulations? Or should he be proactive just in case she really was only looking after herself—but then run the risk of sabotaging her tactic and damning them both? He flashed back to several minutes before, when she had squeezed his wrist and asked him to trust her. He wanted to trust her and somehow he felt that he should, but his head was in total dispute with his heart—a dilemma he'd never previously experienced (because his heart had never before played any role at all).

"Then just let me go, and you can say that I ran while you struggled to hold onto the real killer," she said with an understanding and beatific smile. "Maybe they will find me, but it won't be on your hands. You know you tried to help a mother get home to her son."

A flicker of a smile touched his lips, but rather than soften his expression it made him look manic, with his unruly hair and sweat-drenched face. "What is his name?" he asked.

Without hesitating she answered, "Hamish."

 _Hamish_. The name evoked the memory immediately: " _It's_ _Hamish_. _John Hamish Watson_. _Just. . .if you were looking for baby names_."

At once, Sherlock felt immense reassurance from that covert verbal wink, which came just as he'd resolved to draught a contingency plan of his own, in the event of her betrayal. . . Just as he'd realised that Option #2 was only untenable if it included parts a, b, or c (or in other words, any of the eventualities for his escape).

But no, The Woman was just that brilliant, it seemed, and he was flooded with relief that didn't entirely pertain to his increased chances of survival.

He had never relinquished control of a situation in his life, and despite the fact that he had actually consented to trust Irene, he still had residual concerns that something could go wrong (the custom of being directly in control was deeply ingrained in him). But conversely and counter-intuitively (to him), it appeared that ceding that control—and trusting in Irene—would actually save his life.

He had used reason to try to talk Jarwar into releasing them, but the other man hadn't been motivated or moved by reason, he had been motivated by emotion, and that's where Irene excelled (and he faltered).

Jarwar smiled gently, his eyes shining with that precise emotion; his surrender to Irene's will was now a foregone conclusion. "Hamish is a fine name."

"He's a fine child," she said with sharp pride, and though it came across as maternal, Sherlock saw that it was because she knew she'd prevailed. A small smile touched her face as she went in for the kill: "Because of Mr. Sigerson, I thought I'd never see him again, but _you_ can help me get home."

"Yes," Jarwar said, nodding as if in a dream—or a trance, but not moving.

"I'll do anything," she said, obviously prompting him.

It worked, and suddenly his gaze sharpened, and Sherlock considered that that didn't necessarily bode well. "Anything?" he asked, his eyes calculating.

"Yes," Irene agreed, and Sherlock thought he saw only a trace of trepidation behind her outward certainty, but he couldn't be sure.

"All right, I will let you go. If you do one thing for me."

"Yes?"

 _Can he be stupid enough to ask her to kill me?_ Sherlock hoped. But surely he wouldn't just hand Irene his only leverage over them, as much as he appeared to want to please her.

The Woman was good, yes, very good, but surely not even she was that good.

It was Jarwar's turn to look at Sherlock with contempt. "Tie up Sigerson," he snarled with a curled lip. "Tie him up like the pig he is."

Sherlock blinked evenly at these words, relieved in a sense that that was all that he would ask, and untroubled by the man's disdain since it was obviously by (manipulated, artificially generated) proxy. _And actually this is quite helpful_ , he thought. It would finally allow them to get close physically, and Irene could then relate her strategy to him somehow.

Without a word—just pursed lips showing her acknowledgement—she made her way through the broken glass and slid into the back seat to grasp the rope. Sherlock tried to catch her eye, but her gaze remained focused on the coil in her hands.

"Hurry," Jarwar cautioned, looking anxiously towards the motorway. "They'll be here soon, even sooner now that they know something happened that caused me to end the conversation like that."

She ignored Jarwar as she fed even lengths of rope across her palms, and as Sherlock continued to try making eye contact, she ignored him as well.

He felt a wave of impatience rise up in him, primarily because it was so foreign and intolerable to be so in the dark despite how well she was doing, but secondarily because _he_ would have used Jarwar's momentary distraction to try and communicate with Sherlock in some way, if he were her. Instead her eyes were impenetrable and her face was arranged into a coldly neutral expression as she moved towards him on the seat, the rope draped across her hands.

As she neared, a flash of doubt seared through Sherlock again, sending bolts of adrenaline through his body, and even though he knew cognitively that he should appear to resist because that's what their captor would expect, it didn't feel like much of an act as he backed into the corner and braced his arms behind him, looking into her face challengingly.

" _Let_ _her_ ," Jarwar said menacingly and raised the rifle without hesitation, apparently finding new fortitude in his "alliance" with Irene.

Sherlock gritted his teeth and glared at his former driver in annoyance, then looked questioningly at Irene again. But he found no answers in her expression, no indication that she was going to communicate anything to him at all, and the fact that he could not read her had never been so damnably maddening—or perilous.

But then he recalled the name she had given her fictitious son and her previous plea for trust, and decided that his interpretation of the data must be skewed due to the heightened stimulation of his nervous system. It was unreasonable to think that she would simply abandon him to the LeT after he had saved her life from that exact group, and after. . . everything else. Surely the name was a codeword meant to tell him to trust her—what else could it be?

Clenching his jaw, he brought his wrists forward and put them together, aware with every protesting neuron in his brain that he was placing his fate in Irene's actual hands, and if he were mislaying his trust, it would be catastrophic.

Then, as she began to wrap the cord around his wrists firmly and securely and with practiced dexterity, another, somewhat paranoid, thought occurred to him. Perhaps she had used the name to lull _Sherlock_ into a false sense of security, so that he would trust that her plan included both of them, and not interfere with hers by devising his own.

"Irene," he appealed reflexively, unconsciously, as if stating her name would bring back the woman with whom he'd spent the past 24 hours, or melt her glacial façade, but she acted as if she hadn't heard him. Instinctively he began to struggle in earnest, sweat condensing at his temples and brow.

But it was no use; the rope didn't even flex, let alone slacken. When a dominatrix bound a person, she knew what she was doing.

This was not good, _very_ not good, he admitted to himself in alarm. He had thought that she would make a dummy loop or at least a slipped knot and tuck the spare end under the coils, so that upon inspection it would appear that he was tightly secure, while in fact he could easily escape if he yanked his wrists apart. But these were intricate and robust double constrictor knots—nearly impossible to untie once they had been tightened.

"His ankles too," Jarwar said when Irene finished, and Sherlock was aware that he was openly staring at her, his eyes burning blue-hot into her cold, unresponsive ones, demanding some sort of sign or explanation.

Nothing came—no subtle wink or slow blink, no moment's pressure of her hand, no significant eye contact, nothing. Disbelief and distress abruptly and completely flooded his mind, and he felt so overwhelmed by the concept that she could possibly betray him, that he found himself unable to think clearly about any potential escape plan of his own. Instead, he just kept returning to the time they had spent alone, and he found it impossible to reconcile _that_ woman—the Irene who'd seemed to finally show him the person behind mask—with the automaton in front of him.

But then he would flash to the contrast between how she had acted towards him back in London, in front of the fireplace in Baker Street, and how she had behaved only an hour later on the grounded aeroplane. Though this was a far more extreme situation on either end—their intimacy _and_ her treachery—the parallels could not be denied, and he felt as if he had swallowed ice.

This time he did not, could not, so placidly submit to her bindings, and even though Jarwar shouted and jabbed the gun at him, he struggled against her, kicking out in the confined space in front of the seats.

" _Irene_ ," he said, a bit louder, a little more desperately, not caring that Jarwar could hear. After all, wouldn't this be his reaction if everything she said really were true?

If _it were really true_? that damnable voice scoffed scathingly.

And consistent with the detestable voice, she continued to ignore him, seeming totally unfazed. Moreover, she turned her back to him, sat on his thighs and folded her legs tightly around his knees and calves so that she could loop a measure of rope over his feet. She was strong, and try as he might, he couldn't get any leverage against her, not the way he was positioned. He thought that perhaps some of her clients enjoyed resisting being bound so she'd had plenty of practice, because she seemed all too proficient and expert at this. Like the binds around his wrists, the knots around his ankles did not have any give at all.

Her pose in his lap strongly reminded him of the night before and he seethed over the perverse contrast of those moments and this one. Perhaps nothing they had shared had been true at all—it had all been a means to her end. And maybe she had never intended for things to come to this, but now that they had, she wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice him for herself, especially since he had completed his purpose. He was disposable.

 _And yet still_. . . His mind, which among many, many other things could recite the complete works of George Enescu note by note, and quote every published article by Linus Pauling, could not actually reconcile itself to that idea. Even if this apparent turn of events was perhaps unsurprising to the more cynical and detached part of his nature, it was still too profoundly devastating—for so many reasons—to actually _accept_. It had been one thing to be concerned with this as a potential possibility (he was always aware of the worst-case scenarios in any given dangerous situation), but it was altogether another thing to actually _experience_ it.

 _This could still easily be part of her plan_ , he reassured himself, albeit with increasingly weak conviction, as he watched her back gracefully back out of the car without a glance behind.

As he continued to stare at her through the broken car window, his eyes ablaze and his heart pounding in the closest approximation to mortal panic he'd ever experienced, he continued to shift and twist his hands one way or another, but the knots were mercilessly secure. He was idly aware of Jarwar circling the car and unlocking the rear door upon which Sherlock leaned, but Sherlock's eyes didn't wander from what he could see of Irene's figure.

His captor leaned in to inspect the knots, and finally Sherlock averted his gaze from The Woman to eye Jarwar appraisingly. If the man moved forward just a bit closer, and angled his face slightly more towards Sherlock, he _might_ be able to deliver a solid head-butt. If he managed to knock Jarwar out, surely then Irene would confiscate the weapon and unbind him. After all, she didn't _want_ him dead, did she? She just wasn't above trading his life for her own self-preservation, it seemed. . .

Just ' _seemed'_ , he insisted, but his assertions were starting to feel ever more hollow and unconvincing.

And then, to his immense frustration, the man never provided the necessary angle, and soon he moved out of range to examine the strength of the knots around Sherlock's ankles.

He glanced away in disgust, already knowing what Jarwar would find, and he saw that Irene's position had changed somewhat, and that she was now looking at him directly for the first time since this had all begun.

With Jarwar preoccupied, he took the opportunity to mouth, "Care to share with the rest of the class?"

She looked back at him impassively, then said in a normal volume, "It's obvious, isn't it?"

He stared, the blood roaring in his ears. He hadn't expected that response, and though he tried to discern _what_ could be obvious, only one thing occurred to him: the very possibility he was trying to deny.

"What ...?" He shook his head numbly, overcome by the mere thought of her possible (likely) betrayal. Since he could count the number of people to whom he'd given his trust on one hand, he had never been burnt by mislaid confidence, let alone to such calamitous effect. She _had_ to be bluffing; he could never have been so utterly and thoroughly deceived, for such a sustained period of time and through such intimacy.

"No. . .not obvious. . ." His voice sounded flat and weak even to his own ears, the alien confusion overwhelming him.

And then Jarwar was finished with his scrutiny of Sherlock's binds, and apparently greatly satisfied, he slammed the door against Sherlock and circled around the car to stand by Irene's side. She spared a moment to smile at him, then fixed Sherlock with one last, lingering gaze.

" _Sorry about dinner_ ," she said, an ironic smirk on her lips but a deadly serious glint in her eyes, and although Jarwar wasn't in on the 'joke', he cast a look of gleeful spite towards Sherlock as well.

Sherlock stared blankly at her for a moment as the words failed to sink in, an almost inquisitive look on his face. And then, abruptly, they crashed down around him, and he was filled with profound horror over his cataclysmic error in judgment. Every muscle in his body seemed to turn to stone and immobilise him on the spot, and all he could sense in his fog of shock were his own words, which resounded back to him with cruel finality:

" _Sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side. . . This is your heart, and you should never let it rule your head. . . I've always assumed that love is a dangerous disadvantage, thank you for the final proof."_

He never could have fathomed that those words would apply to him, but now they sounded like a death sentence. One that he masochistically almost believed he deserved: the price to pay for his indescribable folly.


	14. Analysis Paralysis

Once he was somehow able to absorb some of his initial shock, his numbness began to give way to a burning, sickening feeling centred in the pit of his stomach, and he recognised that he was becoming consumed with impotent rage. It was directed primarily at himself, but some of it was focused on her as well. In fact, he realised that suddenly he felt as if he might hate her. Hate her for making him have feelings for her and actually fall for her—and fall for her _game_ —and hate her for this betrayal of his trust. But he also understood that for him to have such a depth of feeling, of passion, it meant he might have been in love with her. And likely still was.

With his lips pulled back over his teeth in a grimace of fury, he kicked his heels hard against the inside of the opposite car door, but besides the unpleasantly jarring feeling of shock-waves shooting up his legs, nothing happened, just as he'd known it wouldn't. But it had been an emotional outburst rather than a rational action, anyway.

 _Emotion_ , he thought with deep bitterness and contempt. Emotion had brought him here to Karachi _,_ and now emotion had betrayed him—reason was all he really had (all he'd ever really had).

So he had to try to use it.

He struggled, at first unsuccessfully, to rein in the feelings that were overwhelming him, and force himself to regain a measure of calm. To regulate his breathing he pursed his lips and inhaled through his nose, his nostrils flaring, before he said in as steady a voice as he could manage, "Irene, you _still_ need me."

She turned back to him while Jarwar looked on in cynical anticipation, as if he were expecting to be entertained by whatever attempts Sherlock would try in order to get Irene back on Sherlock's side, confident that _he_ was now her favourite, and enjoying that 'special status'. He seemed to be even more in her thrall after he'd checked her rope work, if that were possible.

 _She doesn't care about you, you absolute moron_ , Sherlock thought with scorn, but it only made him feel worse; it reminded him that he'd been made that same fool himself.

She raised her eyebrows. "I _don't_ need you," she disagreed with him in an almost conversational tone. "Well not anymore," she amended. "But thank you very much for all of your help." She started to turn away from him again.

"Everyone will know you're still alive," he said in a rush, all too aware that their time grew shorter and shorter. "Your life will still be in danger."

"I don't see how. . ." she said, apparently unconcerned.

Sherlock made a face, impatient when someone failed to be on his same page, even now. "The _video_ ," he spat. "The raw recording hasn't been edited, and that's what will make people think—"

Her eyes narrowed slightly, although her expression was still one of congeniality. "Oh, but _no,_ Sherlock," she interrupted. "You see in the confusion of everything, just before I went through the window and you were shielding my body—which was very noble, by the way—I slid the mobile out of your pocket."

His hand automatically tried to fly up and touch the front of his jacket, but the sharp tug of the rope reminded him that he didn't have any freedom of movement at all. He could do nothing but shoot daggers at her with his eyes.

"Now I think I'll just cross-reference men who've won Baftas for editing in the past few years with your contacts, and email him from your account," she went on, obviously pleased with herself. "I take it he _is_ expecting the footage?"

Ah, she could do 'reason' too.

"You won't get through my passcode," Sherlock stated, but his voice had gone flat, and he couldn't believe the bizarre turn of events that had led to this moment, to having this conversation again. But he had apparently stepped through the looking glass, because now everything was in _reverse_.

"Mm, don't need to," she purred dismissively. "After all, I doubt it's as if you have, oh I don't know. . . miniaturised explosives rigged to destroy your SIM card if someone hacks it," she smirked with one brow propped up. He could've sworn there was a trace of amusement in her eyes, and another flicker of anger threatened to undermine his very tenuous cool.

They both knew he didn't have anything of the sort. He had always thought that in the exceptionally unlikely event that anyone could ever part his mobile from him, his 4-digit code was sufficient security—relative to the information it held. His phone contents weren't inherently dangerous as hers had been, and yet in this context that didn't matter. The wrong information in the wrong hands could be just as devastating. Once again he felt sick for how he had so readily trusted her, even after she had shown him her true colours months ago.

He squeezed his eyes together then blurted out the first thing he could think of. "But if Mazari finds out. . ." he started in a low, tight voice. But he hadn't really thought the idea through, and although his thoughts normally sped up under pressure, this time the profound shock had destablised his entire mental process.

"Oh I _intend_ to tell Mazari what happened," she cut in. "That a compassionate member of the LeT decided to let me go—" here she flashed Jarwar a humble, grateful smile, and he basked in it sycophantically, to Sherlock's disgust "—but that they wouldn't release you, not after you caused one of their deaths. I'll just add that your last request as we parted was that this not all be in vain, that he makes sure to keep me safe and to go on with the plan as discussed."

Sherlock willed his mind to return to its usual standard of functioning so that he could, at minimum, make some retort, but it just alternated between dazed denial that this was happening and explosive anger.

Jarwar touched Irene's elbow and gestured he was going to go pick up the mobile he had dropped by the side of the road when they had broken out of the car, and Irene watched him with wry amusement.

"I think Mazari will believe me. After all, I can be. . ." she glanced over at Jarwar reaching down for his phone, then murmured the rest, " _very persuasive_." She gave Sherlock a piercing look at that, which he interpreted as her mocking him that he had been just as susceptible. The burning feeling increased, and he could feel his face flush red.

Finally, _something_ rational clicked in his brain through the haze of hateful emotion. "My brother—" he started heatedly as his former driver rejoined them.

She sighed over his words, then interrupted, "Will believe that you've finally gotten yourself killed as he's likely always feared you would, although he won't _believe_ it was in the commission of trying to save me (but tragically failing, of course). I imagine he'll blame himself a bit, for introducing us. But I doubt he'll figure it out, because you've already been so clever. Now _do_ stop talking, dear. As Mr. Jarwar says, they might be here soon and I'm quite eager to take my leave."

Her subtext seemed to say, _Checkmate_ , and Sherlock just stared at her. He could think of absolutely nothing more to say.

Jarwar was staring, too, and looked utterly confused, but incredibly he didn't seem very curious or suspicious. Sherlock deduced that the man was already so overwhelmed with what had happened that he didn't care to question things further, in case they complicated things more than he could handle.

Then he blinked and after casting Sherlock one last wary look, he said urgently to Irene, "Yes, madam, you _must_ go. Quickly."

"I couldn't agree more, Zairaan," she responded, looking into Sherlock's eyes with a hint of something that looked like satisfaction.

"There's just one last thing," she said, and she turned to the other man and smiled hopefully. "If you have any coat or extra chador, so that I don't have to be seen in this. . ." she gestured to her tailored but worn navy dress in concerned distaste, as if it were as offensive to her as Sherlock imagined it had been to the LeT. Even while he understood that her request was sensible—she didn't want to stand out as she made her way back to the city—he probably would have sneered at the pretense with which she asked, if he hadn't felt so dazed.

But Jarwar was listening eagerly, and after apparently thinking for a moment, his face lit up. "I do, _yes_! I have a spare kameez!" he said, as if thrilled to be of use, and he moved to retrieve it for her.

It happened then, with lightning speed.

In one moment Zairaan Jarwar was leaning towards the console between the front seats, and then in the next he was crumpled on the ground, his limbs sprawled out across the dry yellow-grey dust of the road. The transition was only interspersed by one blurred streak: the arc of Irene's arm swinging down hard over the man's head.

For a full second Sherlock just gaped at the prone figure, so taken aback that he almost didn't notice the fist-sized rock that dropped from Irene's hand. And due to the flood of adrenaline that had begun to course through his body, it took him yet another second to realise that she must have grabbed it from the ground while Jarwar had been intently inspecting Sherlock's bindings—and while _he'd_ been speculating if he could head butt the man.

Then Sherlock watched in blank astonishment as she dropped to one knee and unlooped the strap of the rifle from around the unconscious man's torso and draped it over her own shoulder, then frisked him and produced the key to the car and what Sherlock recognised as his own Swiss Army Knife. She pocketed both and started to pivot and rise.

The sight of his knife seemed to somehow jolt his brain into action, and even though he didn't fully accept the legitimacy of what he was seeing before him, an urgent thought occurred to him—one that he had to express just in case Irene's actions were now actually what they appeared to be.

" _Stop_ ," Sherlock shouted, and she froze with her eyebrows raised and her face tense. "We have to bring him along."

If the two of them left him to be collected by the LeT, he could potentially help the insurgents piece together that the SSG agent who had helped Sherlock Holmes earlier that day was the same man as one of their new recruits, and Sherlock needed Mazari to remain imbedded so that he could confirm Sherlock's version of events to Mycroft. Also, if Mazari were discovered there would be an inquiry into how it had happened, which would expose Sherlock's actions and jeopardise Irene's future.

She nodded then braced in a crouching position, locked her arms around the man's chest, and managed to drag him the metre between where he'd fallen and the back door of the vehicle. Sherlock reflected that since he was so incapacitated, it was a good thing the man didn't weigh much more than Irene—only approximately two stone more, give or take a few pounds. On top of that, her obviously vigorous dose of adrenaline meant that she had Jarwar propped up against the car in a matter of seconds. Which was very good, because Sherlock was all too aware that every second counted, with a host of extremely dangerous and vengeful LeT terrorists closing in, and only a partially loaded rifle in their possession for any defense.

Exceedingly reassured that there were very practical logistics and details on which to now focus, he firmly and deliberately suppressed any thoughts about what had transpired in the past ten minutes. He knew, warily, that she might bring it up herself, but as far as he was concerned, they didn't ever have to discuss it in the future, or refer to it in any way. It had been a once-in-a-lifetime nightmare of out-of-control emotions, and he didn't ever want to think about it, or analyse it, again. He fervently wished that he could delete it in its entirety, but he knew that the harrowing experience was permanently etched in his mind.

He could push it from his thoughts at least, and for the moment he was able to, although he sensed with chagrin that it was only temporary.

When she opened the door, Sherlock scooted towards the exit and slid out of the car to perch precariously on feet that were set too closely together, but still he managed to help Irene swing the man's lower body into the backseat after she had hoisted him halfway up.

Then he gracelessly jumped around the car to the left seat and slid in, knowing that the sight of a 6'1" tall man in his thirties moving in such a way was absurd, but deliberately not caring. He didn't mind appearing ridiculous from time to time; it was the actual way in which he had recently been ridiculous that was so detestable.

Irene slammed the door behind him then circled around to get behind the wheel of the vehicle. She paused only long enough to dig out the key and Swiss Army Knife, which she opened and positioned in his hands before thrusting the key in the ignition.

"Cut through the riding turns on the knots and they should come apart easily," she instructed him. "But hold on. . ."

Then, not looking to see if he was following her directions, she shoved the gear lever into Drive and the car jerked forward with a lurch and a screech of tyres.

As she glanced between the road and the rearview mirror she accelerated sharply, and the needle on the dashboard climbed from 25 mph to 40 to 60, then eventually hovered around 75. She didn't say a word to him, and as he sawed at the rope, he didn't speak either. He didn't trust himself to say anything, not while he still struggled to gain dominance over the multitude of conflicting emotions that were fighting for control over him. And he still didn't trust her, for that matter.

Normally he wouldn't hold himself back and he'd unleash a barrage of eviscerating words on whomever had committed offense, but this situation was far from 'normal'. He'd already made himself vulnerable enough, and if he opened his mouth now, he had no idea what humiliating confessions and recriminations would emerge.

They drove several miles in somewhat loaded silence, and when he finally he did speak, it was only to state a bit superficially—and pettily, "You're going the wrong direction. The motorway is east, behind us."

"Oh, do _you_ care to see what happens if we pass a convoy of the LeT coming towards us on the road and they recognise me, or Jarwar's car?" she asked, still peering warily into the mirror every few moments.

Sherlock shut his mouth with a snap, once again feeling reproachful despite his attempts to detach himself from all emotion. Because of course she was correct, and he resented how even in this small instance she had outwitted him. What was worse, she was the one to blame for his disorientated state.

She glanced over at him, then sighed. "You're angry with me."

"No," he immediately replied, but the heated way he couldn't help saying the word somewhat undermined his denial. Feeling his cheeks colour traitorously, he bent forward to work at the knots at his ankles.

He sensed her looking at him from the corners of her eyes for another lingering moment, but she didn't say anything, and then she turned her attention back towards the road.

A moment later he cut through the last of the rope, and kicked the tangle of knots over his feet as quickly as possible, then sat up and rubbed at the raw red flesh that encircled his wrists, frowning.

"Why did you knot them so _tightly_ ," he muttered, then mentally flinched at the obvious tone of peevishness in his voice. He realised some of the enduring feelings were still bleeding through his resolve, and he became even more determined to quell them. He didn't want her to know the full extent and nature of his panic due to her actions.

"You know why," she said distractedly, as she turned the wheel around a particularly sharp bend. They were getting into more mountainous territory.

Now he understood how John felt when Sherlock implied the same thing to him, and after the flash of irritation, his mind reached for the solution.

"Ah, yes," he said quietly after only two seconds. Now that he was not preoccupied with determining her intentions and his chances of survival, the answer was almost embarrassingly obvious. In fact he _had_ already known, but he'd deleted it, dismissing it as inconsequential.

The faded scarring on Jarwar's hands suggested the frequent handling of netting, probably a nylon gillnet, since the fine webbing of scar tissue indicated a mesh of about 150 milimetres long, plus that had been the most common kind of netting he'd seen when he'd traveled around surrounding fishing villages several days previously. That alone was information enough, but in combination with their proximity to the coast and Jarwar's region-specific surname (indigenous to where they were located, the Sindh Province, where the vast majority of people were employed in fishing), it made Sherlock positive that he had grown up in a fishing family, and had helped out with the duties before he'd moved to the city in search of a more exciting life. ( _Well, he's succeeded_ , Sherlock thought dryly.)

And as a fisherman, he would have been extremely familiar with boats and rigging—and knots. If Irene had not legitimately and securely bound Sherlock, Jarwar would have been able to tell, and it would have undermined everything she had accomplished. With such high stakes, he (grudgingly) acknowledged that she couldn't have afforded to do that.

Sherlock initially felt a burst of confidence from making the connection and with such relative ease, after feeling so impeded by the emotions that had taken his brain hostage, but as soon as he even slightly let his guard down, the waiting cacophony loomed once more.

He let out a soft groan and covered his eyes with one of his now free hands, but was saved from the increasingly exhausting task of holding the feelings at bay—from himself and from her—when his mobile emitted the electronic _beep_ - _beep_ sound that indicated it had picked up a signal. Sherlock's eyes widened; now that they were at a higher altitude, the phone must have been in range of the signals being transmitted by a cellular tower.

But more significantly, the sound had issued from his front jacket pocket—exactly where he had replaced it himself. Irene had never even taken it; it really been just talk. _But why_? Had she merely been stalling until she found the right opportunity to knock out Jarwar? That was a dangerous gamble considering how short their time had been. He looked over at her sharply, but if she sensed his narrowed-eyes gaze she didn't show it. She kept her face forward, focusing on the increasingly winding roads.

Without hesitating for another moment, he slid his phone out and checked the levels of connectivity. The signal was weak, but Sherlock thought that it would be sufficient, and he pressed a speed dial button that he had programmed that morning: Mazari's mobile.

Fortunately the SSG captain answered on the first ring, and without preamble Sherlock launched into a concise but rapid-fire debriefing on everything that had happened, only glossing over the part where he had actually bought into Irene's bluff.

The man listened attentively, interrupting just to ask clarifying questions, and Sherlock felt satisfied that he had grasped all the relevant details in only a few minutes.

"We have to keep him quiet about us," Sherlock said, concluding. "So I need you to arrange for him to remain in custody, although covertly somehow. . . I assume Mycroft will hop onto his jet the moment the video is released, so let Jarwar go after a few weeks if necessary. I don't care and I doubt he'll be a threat to anyone. I just don't want his testimony to get out, and back to my brother, which could happen if he's questioned and charged."

"Not a problem, that's easy enough to manage," Mazari replied in his characteristically detached but no-nonsense tone. "We can hold terror suspects indefinitely without formal indictment."

Sherlock wrinkled his nose in distaste. "Lovely, but let's not _turn_ him radical, shall we?"

"He was ready to hand you over to be executed," Mazari pointed out, his monotone voice slightly raised for once.

"Well, do what you see fit," Sherlock relented dismissively, not willing to waste any more time on someone like Jarwar. "I commend him to your care."

He just wanted to get him out of his sight; he didn't really care _what_ happened to him. He was utterly repulsed by Zairaan Jarwar, though he was faintly aware that he was projecting his own anger and self-disgust, for having been as susceptible to Irene's manipulations as this common, gullible man.

"O _ne lonely_ , naive _man desperate to show off_ _, and a woman clever enough to make him feel special_. _. ._ " his brother's voice echoed in his brain again—mocking, but oh so apt. Again, as well.

"Where are you now?" Mazari asked, interrupting Sherlock's thoughts, and he glanced out the window, noting their relative elevation and the height of the peaks on either side of the road, then took into account how long they'd been driving.

"Bela Road, approximately five miles southeast of Sipai Sing," he replied, and there was a moment of silence from the other end, during which Sherlock could tell that the other man was consulting a digital map.

A moment later, Mazari directed, "Pull over when you get to Ara Kaur Bridge in approximately ten miles. We'll meet you there in an hour."

Sherlock's brow creased. "We're two hours in the direction opposite from where you were headed. What, are you going to just hop onto your _helicopter_?" he asked sarcastically.

"Of course," Mazari answered deadpan, "How else would I reach you so quickly?" Sherlock raised his eyebrows thoughtfully, once again impressed despite himself with the resources the man seemed to have at his disposal, and idly gratified that he'd been willing to assist.

"One hour," the captain reiterated, and hung up.

When Sherlock clicked off, Irene cast him a questioning look. "What did he say?" she prompted a moment later when he didn't immediately explain (momentarily savouring the fact that this time _he_ was the one privy to critical information, as puerile as that was).

"At the first bridge after the next town, pull over," he finally answered. "They're coming by helicopter."

She nodded and continued driving, while he looked out of the window at the barren rocky pass with a grim expression, still struggling to rein in the glut of feelings that seemed to grow only more adamant and powerful as time progressed, not less so.

Less than ten minutes later, as the sky was starting to fade from a vivid midday blue into a paler, more muted late-afternoon shade, and the shadows cast by the mountains were lengthening, they reached a 150 metre concrete bridge, under which slow-moving, muddy tan water flowed. Irene steered the car over to the side of the road, which was barely two lanes by that point, into an almost nonexistent shoulder. She shifted the vehicle into Park, and then turned the key in the ignition so that the rumbling of the motor faded away. As the minutes ticked by they sat next to each other in silence, and while it was still awkward, Sherlock now also felt somewhat satisfied with it. Though he still didn't necessarily trust himself to speak, he took a strange sort of pleasure out of being able to give her stony silent treatment, since he felt as though he was the one who had been wronged.

He realised too late that such a line of thinking was a slippery slope, and in the absence of any other distractions, the emotions began to swell within him despite his herculean attempts to ignore them. They were too formidable, and he was too mentally exhausted to fend them off any further.

Helpless, he felt the weight of the intense and contradictory feelings crash over him: his profound relief that she hadn't betrayed him (and secondarily, that he wouldn't be killed), his grudging but great admiration for her, his distrust of her after the reminder of how expertly she could manipulate, and his intense anger toward her. The anger was diluted from the hatred he'd thought he felt before, but it was still potent.

But even a straightforward emotion such as anger—one that he actually did permit himself to feel from time to time—was confusing and complex when it came to her. He was angry with her for excluding him from the plan, for making him think she was betraying him, and for causing him to feel doubt about the agenda behind everything she'd said to him, but most of all, he was furious that she had made him _feel_ , full stop.

He had lived his life exclusively in his mind, and everything else was peripheral or in service of his brain: his legs were transport, his food was efficiently-used fuel, and emotion was immaterial at best, and dangerous at worst. And yet she had struck all of that down: a lifetime of carefully built discipline and control was devastated in a matter of weeks. She had him utilising his body in a manner distinctly separate from cerebral pursuits—and worse: enjoying it, wanting more—and now emotions were not only prevalent, but reigned over him.

He couldn't wait to return home to his sanctuary on Baker Street, away from this emotional quagmire. Perhaps it was simplistic, but he thought that if he could only get back to London and his life there, he could put all these complex and overwhelming feelings behind him, permanently. Because as long as he was here, with her. . .

He growled low in his throat and turned on her, no longer able to hold back, despite the potential cost.

But just as he had opened his mouth to say something (he wasn't quite sure what), a muffled moan came from the back seat, and they both stiffened at once. Jarwar was conscious, and if they didn't act quickly, he might attempt an escape through the same window Irene had smashed.

It was perhaps the one thing that could have diverted him from his outburst.

Her face set, Irene grabbed the AK-47 and leapt out from behind the wheel, leaving Sherlock alone in the front seat for a moment, before he slid out as well. He felt compelled to see how the other man would react to Irene's apparent betrayal, particularly in comparison to Sherlock's own response. He privately hoped that Jarwar would rage and plead with her; at least then Sherlock could perhaps feel marginally better about how he had comported himself.

But to his initial surprise, there was no defiance or fight in Jarwar as he gazed up at them from the backseat, only resigned acceptance. A moment later Sherlock realised that the driver probably felt he deserved this outcome, to some extent. After all, he wasn't a criminal or even vindictive in nature himself, he was just a pawn caught up in extreme circumstances, driven by forces beyond his control.

 _Somewhat like myself_ , Sherlock thought sardonically. _And to a degree I felt I deserved it, as well._

Meanwhile, Jarwar had glanced at the weapon in Irene's arms, then looked away, averting his gaze submissively.

"You tricked me," he said, staring forward with blank, downcast eyes.

"You left me little choice, didn't you?" Irene asked, her voice not reproving but mild and matter-of-fact, and he just nodded listlessly.

"What will you do?" he asked, his voice bleak. It was clear to Sherlock that he believed that they had brought him to such a desolate bridge in order to treat him to the same fate that the LeT had intended for them.

"You're going to be arrested," Sherlock informed him in a flat tone, and Jarwar started, as if he had not noticed Sherlock standing behind Irene's shoulder.

Only then did something register in his eyes, and he stared at Sherlock almost appraisingly, then glanced back at Irene.

"You do care about him. I was right to begin with."

Sherlock watched Irene from the corner of his eyes, waiting for her reaction, but she just raised her eyebrows, neither confirming nor denying his statement. He felt strangely, but immensely, relieved.

But Jarwar seemed to take her absence of denial as admission, because he nodded to himself.

"But you were so. . . I believed you."

"Oh don't beat yourself up," Sherlock drawled. "It's _what she does_." He had intended for the comment to sound light and wry, but an acidic edge had crept into his words. Irene glanced sharply at him, the skin around her eyes tensed into fine lines, and the eye contact they made was unexpectedly intense.

Sherlock looked away first, his heart beginning to pound an arrhythmia in his chest.

Jarwar's gaze darted between the two of them, and a dent creased in his brow. "It's obvious now, even if you don't admit it. I should've stood by what I thought. . .then I would've never. . ." he trailed off weakly, and Sherlock let out a huff of dry laughter at the absurdity that Jarwar could read Irene, when even Sherlock couldn't do that.

But then Irene shocked him. "Yes. You were right, I do. . . care," she professed in a soft voice, her eyes shifting towards Sherlock, but not quite reaching him, before snapping back to Jarwar.

Sherlock froze at these words for a moment, the laughter dying on his lips, before he whipped around on his heel and stalked back into the car, starting to breathe hard as he slid into the seat and glared through the windscreen across the shadowy and barren landscape.

Rather than appeasing or mollifying him, her claim ( _yes_ , _claim,_ he thought savagely; he could hardly take her words at face-value after everything that had recently happened) that she had "cared" for him incited the exact opposite sentiment; somehow he felt even more agitated than he had before.

Initially he couldn't grasp the basis of the caustic feeling—it was too all-encompassing, just _too much_ —and for a moment he felt almost smothered in helpless confusion and fury. But after several minutes of consciously attempting to lower his heart-rate and respiration, his brain finally managed to begin parsing through the flood of disorganised ideas and feelings, though still without nearly the clarity with which it could process facts and data.

If she had said nothing to Jarwar, he could've accepted that she'd had her own reasons for not wanting him dead, ranging from simple partiality or respect, to wanting him as a resource in the future . . .That she had previously only orchestrated the seduction because she believed that that's what _he_ wanted, and she needed his ongoing cooperation at the time. That was something that he could have (perhaps) tolerated—at least he could have reconciled such a narrative with his life back in London. As he'd decided before, he could have sublimated his own feelings once he returned home, and although he might never be able to delete them, he was confident that he could have eventually suppressed them to the point where they could no longer distract him from his life, his work.

But since she did elect to make such an unnecessary declaration and appear to raise the emotional stakes between them, it told Sherlock that she still had an agenda of her own—that she was making yet another play of some kind.

But moreover (and more personally salient, he understood), he could not believe that she had the audacity to try such an angle with him for a third time, when it was so blatantly clear that it was just a string she pulled whenever she wished to turn him into her puppet. Just how much of a smitten fool did she take him for? Especially considering she had performed an identical trick on Jarwar right before Sherlock's eyes not one hour ago. . .

 _The question should be_ , he thought with deep disgust, _why_ wouldn't _she continue use this approach_?

Dangling "the promise of love" had obviously proven so effective in all the previous times she'd wished to manipulate him, after all. She was all too aware of his sentiment for her, and she apparently viewed him as such a mug that she thought she could repeatedly exploit those sentiments, and he would remain oblivious—just grateful for her attention. The fact that he had repeatedly proven himself just as much the fool she took him for was unbearable.

But now, finally, his eyes were clear. He could see through her pretense, and it enraged him. Even more than the understanding that he had been consistently outwitted, genuine and raw pain fueled his fury. Even while he loathed himself for falling for her ruse, he felt something for her, still wanted to believe that her words could be, and had been, true.

 _But not this time_ , he avowed, hating his ongoing weakness for her. _Whatever it is, I will not degrade myself yet again._

After a moment he sighed, feeling weary more than irate, closed his eyes, and ran through another mental exercise to distract and calm himself. He named all of Bartók's compositions for violin by ascending order of the key in which they began ( _Pieces, Fantasia, Sonata for Solo Violin. ._. he listed), but when he opened his eyes again, any comfort he might have found was obliterated. Irene was sliding into the seat next to him, an intent expression on her face, and her eyes penetrating.

He did a double take and his eyes narrowed, then spat out, "Jarwar—"

"Is bound and secured to a handle in the door," she interrupted in a rush. "I think you can personally attest that he's not going anywhere, yes?" But before he could answer she continued, "I'd like to talk about what happened before."

Sherlock opened his mouth, ready to unleash various accusations or scathing retorts, but before he said anything he realised that as satisfying as that would be, it was wiser not to speak, as he'd originally resolved. He had the dreadful feeling that if he started talking it would devolve into the verbal equivalent of Pandora's box, and he would divulge things—personal and private things—that she could use to exploit his damnable sentiment even further. So instead, with effort, he pressed his lips back together and blinked coldly.

She countered with her own silence, although her gaze continued to drill into him, and there was a drawn-out battle of wills between them. This time Irene relented, and she sighed and turned her face towards the window, looking restive and unhappy. And though Sherlock felt satisfied with this small ( _very_ small) victory, he was also surprised that she hadn't forged ahead regardless; his icing-out tactic had never fazed her before. This thought was immediately followed by the familiar spasm of aching want and the urge to dismiss everything he'd just concluded and ask if she'd meant what she said, but instead he hardened himself against her with even greater resolve.

 _No,_ he decided. _For our remaining time together she'll be just like any other client_ , _albeit an untrustworthy one of dubious motives_. Nothing more.

* * *

Forty minutes later, Captain Mazari and a team of two, including one of the SSG men who had helped with the video, touched down on the road in a Bell AH-1S Cobra helicopter, its rotors whipping up dust and churning the nearby water into whitecaps. The SSG agent parted ways with the rest of the party to drive the car and its prisoner into custody, while Mazari and his two silent, guarded passengers lifted into the air and turned southeast, bearing towards the Port of Karachi, and closer to their parting futures.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the words of J.K. Rowling:
> 
> "One person can't feel all that at once, they'd explode!" – Ron Weasley
> 
> "Just because you have the emotional range of a teaspoon. . ." – Hermione Granger
> 
> (Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix)


	15. The Getaway

After banking sharply over a dense mangrove forest placed incongruously next to the sprawling and industrial port, they set down on the helipad on the edge of the complex. Ten minutes later, the rotors roared in Sherlock's ears and whipped his hair wildly around his face as he disembarked into twilight from the military-grade helicopter, which looked like a piranha amongst goldfish when surrounded by the small civilian helicopters parked around the landing pad.

On the tarmac in front, they were met by another vehicle (this time it _was_ a Lincoln towncar), and Irene looked incredibly natural sliding into its sleek, dark interior. Sherlock pursed his lips slightly in self-reproach, then slid in next to her and saw his blue Paul Smith scarf draped over the garment hook.

"My things?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"In the boot, yes," Mazari confirmed from a front seat, and Sherlock nodded sharply in satisfaction and leaned back against the leather seats, sinking back into silence. He had taken the most important documents with him and had placed them under his coat before they'd parted with the other car, but the rest of his belongings had remained at the hotel. Collecting them had been the final (albeit minor) point of business, but now that it was settled. . .

As they drove through towering blocks of stacked containers, cranes, and cargo lifts, Sherlock began to mentally recalibrate and prepare himself to segue back to his life in England, or at least he attempted to.

He felt satisfied that the operation itself was finished—had gone quite well, in fact, despite various detours—and normally he reverted to a state of boredom almost immediately after finishing a case or experiment. He usually only felt a sense of satisfaction _while_ he was breaking a case or pulling off some machination, and he rarely experienced much of an afterglow.

But he certainly didn't feel bored now; he still felt the thrill of agitation he had when in the deepest throes of a case—when things still seemed chaotic, before he could rearrange the disparate facts into a logical sequence of events. _And I know why_ , he thought with a frown on his lips and between his eyes, as they were waved through a checkpoint after the flash of Mazari's badge. _Irene is the 'unsolved case'._

The hour-long helicopter ride had been unbearable at the beginning. Anger and uncertainty still wreaked havoc on his nervous and mental processes, even after he'd made his resolution not to think of her as anything but a client.

 _Finally_ he had (somewhat) mastered the feelings through a strategy composed of Judo-based Zen breathing, structured distraction, and good old-fashioned English repression. But while he might have managed to (somewhat) inhibit the disorientating thoughts as they repeatedly cycled through his mind with the velocity of his normal ones (though with none of the usual resolution), he still felt restless and edgy. Things were unresolved, and he couldn't fathom how they _would_ be—at least not to his satisfaction.

Speaking of satisfaction, he would kill for a cigarette, and he thought longingly of the last Dunhill in the packet.

After approximately twenty more minutes of navigating the narrow lanes of the port and passing through yet another checkpoint, they steered onto a long dock, with a pedestrian walkway leading from the closer berth to the massive freightliner, the aptly named _Independent Venture._ Their getaway vehicle, so to speak.

When the Lincoln pulled up to the gate that lead to the walkway, Sherlock grabbed his scarf and wrapped it around his throat before collecting the rest of his items. He and Mazari (and he supposed Irene from the sound of the footfalls, though he didn't spare her a glance) approached the customs official posted at the entrance.

Sherlock fluidly slid the two counterfeit passports from his coat's inner pocket—each one stuffed with fifteen 5,000 Rupee notes—and passed them to the official.

"We're in rather a hurry, Officer. If you wouldn't mind _not_ taking the time to go through all the formalities, such as scanning or stamping. . ." he stated in a clipped but authoritative voice, then shifted his gaze from the man's face down to the passports, with his brows slightly raised.

The young official's eyes momentarily bulged from his head at the sight of the sum of money, but he quickly recovered and resumed his passive expression.

"Ehm. . .yes sir, everything looks to be in order," he said, passing the documents back after comparing their names to the passenger manifest, and then slipping the cash into his uniform pocket with shaking fingers.

Dismissing the official the instant he'd served his role in Sherlock's agenda, he turned towards Mazari, who was wearing a jaded but complacent expression upon witnessing the illegal exchange. Still, Sherlock knew that as honourable as he appeared, Mazari couldn't be entirely above-board himself; it was unlikely the man would have consented to be part of this entire illegal operation if he were.

"No offense Mr. _Sigerson_ , but I hope that this time it really _is_ goodbye," the SSG captain said with a hint of dry amusement beneath his words, as he raised his right hand. "So I hope not to hear you've run afoul of any pirates. . ."

"Mm, yes," Sherlock replied as he shook the proffered hand, not just to expedite the parting but out of actual agreement.

"And Miss, you'll stay out of trouble?" he asked, turning to Irene (whom Sherlock had been steadfastly ignoring) and fixing her with a stern stare.

"Oh I won't make any promises that I can't keep," she retorted with a mischievous spark in her eye, and as they clasped hands Mazari chuckled despite himself, his grave poker face splitting into a smile.

 _He thinks she's joking_ , Sherlock thought.

His phone vibrated and he looked down to see an incoming call from Caldwell, but immediately he pressed 'ignore' and then began typing.

_Boarding the ship now. Mazari will inform you of the rest. Enjoy Karachi. SH._

He smirked to himself at that last bit as he pressed 'send', feeling pleased that he could get in a sarcastic barb about Caldwell's demotion without alienating him, since Sherlock still needed his help when Mycroft investigated Irene's 'execution'. Another reason to prefer texting to ringing: no way to discern tone.

After that last self-satisfied thought, he promptly dismissed Caldwell from his mind as well, and moved up the gangway towards the towering freightliner, and away from Karachi and all that had transpired there.

After checking in with the ship's chief steward they followed the gratingly talkative man to a mid-level cabin, and although Irene walked beside Sherlock wordlessly, he knew that she was only biding her time, waiting for the 'right moment' (which as far as he was concerned, was never).

They entered a well-appointed suite and the steward pointed out all the various amenities in the bedroom, sitting room, and en-suite bathroom. And although Sherlock was irritated with the man's inane chatter (really, anyone with even one functional eye could see that there were six electrical mains throughout the quarters and an interior telephone), he also dreaded his departure, when he and Irene would be alone again.

As soon as the door closed and only the two of them remained, there was one long moment of silence, before he attempted to initiate the conversation so as to control its course. But just as he inhaled to speak, she began to talk as well.

"I didn't realise one could travel on a cargo ship with such style," she said in a conversational tone.

"I didn't book it for its amenities," he replied coldly, not looking at her _. Irene Adler making small talk?_

"Mm, speaking of your booking. . ." she redirected, apparently unbothered by his patronising tone, "Only one cabin?"

Perhaps _not_ small talk then—just transitioning into her incredibly leading question.

"Evidently," he said, unzipping his suitcase to find a certain manila envelope, and not rising to her bait. Fortunately, they had pertinent and critical details still left to discuss, and so he wouldn't have to be subjected to such loaded conversation—for the moment. Finally his fingers closed around the file and he pulled it from the case then turned swiftly and thrust it into her hands. She accepted it with slight surprise, and he pressed his advantage.

"Enclosed is all the documentation I've collected for your transition into a new identity," he stated at once in a detached monotone. "And here is your passport." He handed her the navy blue and gold credentials, which she took with a wry smile.

"I actually have the authentic version," she murmured, fingering through the crisp bank pages.

Though his face remained impassive, he did a bit of a mental double-take as the words hit him; after he had spent so much time delving into her past with no success whatsoever, she was initiating the conversation _herself_. At one point he might have immediately asked a number of pre-devised questions, but now he didn't dare. Knowing someone's past could be incredibly intimate, and that was a risk he could not afford.

Instead Sherlock quashed the remnants of curiosity that rose in response to her intriguing opening, and corrected, "You mean _Irene Adler_ did." He unwound his scarf and hung it up in the fitted wardrobe, and added curtly, "You're really going to need to start separating yourself from your former identity."

Other than giving him a brief, patient look, Irene ignored him. "My father was American and I was born there," she continued, then flexed the passport between her index finger and thumb. "Impressive, U.S. passports are supposed to be the most difficult to forge. You're certain it's going to pass the screening?"

"Of course," he answered abruptly, while once again resisting the strong urge to ask follow-up questions about the information she was so readily and repeatedly offering. But the information did answer one question that had been nagging him: she _had_ referenced the television series because she'd been (at least partly) raised in the United States. Although due to her accent, it was likely that she had relocated prior to age twelve, since most linguists agreed that after age twelve the native accent— _FOCUS, Sherlock,_ he reprimanded himself sharply, disrupting the train of thought.

"This one is designed to appear pre-2007, so there's no biometric chip, just a barcode," he continued, somehow managing to redirect his attention to the topic at hand. "It's still valid but the security parameters aren't as rigorous, and it expires in 2015 so after that you'll be responsible for your own documentation. You also need the yellow fever certificate for passage through the Suez Canal enclosed in the folder."

"The Suez Canal?" she asked, looking up. "Where's our final destination?"

" _Not_ 'ours'," he contradicted flatly. "I'm disembarking tomorrow in Muscat, Oman, but you'll continue onward for about a week to the port of Piraeus, which is half an hour outside of Athens. Greece has the laxest maritime border control in the EU—just a stamp, no scanning. They can't exactly afford that type of new equipment as of now. . ." he added in a bit of a snide tone, then continued in a rapid-fire but concise pace:

"Included is also a plane ticket for ten days from now, Delta Flight 133 from Athens to JFK, departing at 12:45. I trust you'll be composed as you pass through U.S. customs. In New York you will find an account at Chase Bank in the name of Erin Sigerson—same as the passport, of course—and the paperwork, bankcard, and checkbook are included in that file. The card has been activated and you'll be able to withdraw money; the PIN is enclosed as well. I considered adding your new pseudonym to your account in Zurich, but decided it's too risky for now. If _I_ were able to track down your Swiss bank, so can Mycroft, and he'll be sure to monitor the activity. I don't know for how long. So you shouldn't transfer any money any time soon, probably not for years, if ever, I'm afraid. Still, two weeks ago I was able to withdraw an adequate sum myself—don't ask me how, it was incredibly tedious and dull—and I bounced it around a bit before using it to pay for your documentation. I deposited the rest of it into your Chase account in cash, so you won't be destitute. Far from it, in fact."

By the time he was finished, she was gazing at him with a slightly aroused and glassy-eyed stare, and in the long moment that followed he was strongly reminded of her reaction to the time he'd cracked the AirBond code. He wished she would say something.

Finally she broke the silence to ask, "Erin _Sigerson_?"

 _Not_ that, however.

"Yes," he said, waving a hand in an indifferent manner. "Irene, Erin—they're practically homophones. And Erin is a quite common name in America." He was attempting to deflect the subject, but it didn't work.

"Any relation to Dr. Sigerson?" she pressed, but the brow raised in faint amusement indicated that she already knew what he was going to say.

"His wife." He looked away and quickly added, "Hence only one cabin, to answer your earlier question. We need to adhere to our identities."

She looked as if she were about to say something; Sherlock knew that it would be an ironic allusion to the night before, when he had drily remarked on her motives behind the choice to pose as his wife at the hotel.

" _Don't_ make assumptions," he cut in, forestalling her. "It was simply the most efficacious way to establish your American bank account. Sigerson has excellent and established credit that goes back over seven years."

Irene made a faint sound in the back of her throat that Sherlock didn't quite understand, but then she added softly, "No, I think we're _well_ past 'assumptions'."

When he didn't answer or acknowledge her words, she sighed and added, "I don't know what to say. You've obviously gone to a great deal of work. Thank you."

"Please," he brushed off, slightly scoffing. He _had_ in fact gone to immense effort, but unlike most cases, he wasn't comfortable with the recognition—it felt strangely embarrassing all of a sudden. Furthermore, he found her apparent sincerity when thanking him rather disconcerting. Trying to set aside the feeling of wrong-footedness, he pointed out: "I didn't arrange a Social Security Number, so I trust you'll be able to secure any exigent needs yourself."

She nodded briefly, unconcerned, then asked, "Where did the name Sigerson come from?" He looked suspiciously into her eyes for traces of shrewdness, but all he saw was genuine curiosity.

Interesting, so she was intrigued by his past as well, apparently. This realisation elicited a flicker of something—something that felt like being flattered but resonated more deeply, somehow—and set his heart pounding.

They were getting into dangerous territory, and Sherlock felt that they had come around in a full circle, and that he was back in the Karachi hotel again, between four walls that were closing in on him. He felt dizzy, but he still found himself answering her. "My father," he said in a low voice, before clearing his throat. "His name was Siger."

"Was?"

Sherlock didn't answer. He was just as unwilling to share his past as he was to ask about hers, and for the same reason: the familiarity it would bring, and all the dangers that came with that—everything that he was working so hard to shut out. Thankfully she quickly took the hint not to pry into that subject, and she moved on. "And you're his son. So, Sigerson."

Sherlock nodded brusquely, his lips pressed together.

"Sherlock. . ." she started, reaching a hand towards him.

But now that he had finished briefing her on the final phase of the operation, he knew that this opened the conversation to certain other, more foreboding topics, and he was becoming increasingly panicked that if he stayed in the suite for much longer, she would manage to bend him to whatever will she had. He knew (many times over) just how susceptible he was to her.

He needed distance, air, and most critically, a _smoke_. Grabbing his scarf again, he turned on the spot and swished out of the door, leaving her with her hand still poised in the air. He knew it looked like he was bolting, but he didn't care at that point. Besides, perhaps he was.

He strode swiftly down the corridor, tying on his scarf and tugging up his collar as he walked, then threw himself down a staircase marked 'D' and descended several flights at two or three steps at a time until he reached the main deck, where he headed in the opposite direction towards the cargo area. There he wove through the tall stacks of containers like a man evading a tail, which was essentially what he was doing. Finally, his breathing slightly elevated, he reached a section of railing that was mostly obscured by the towering aluminium boxes, and he fumbled for the precious final cigarette.

He shoved it between his lips and lit it with shaking hands, then inhaled deeply and finally allowed some of the tension to seep from his shoulders as he breathed out a long stream of smoke. While he continued to take deep, regular pulls on the Dunhill, he watched the glittering orange and white lights come up in the port as the sky darkened, and he thought he had never seen a more welcome view: it was the last sight he would behold of Karachi.

The calming and head-clearing effects of the tobacco took a little longer than normal due to his agitated state, but when they did come they were proportionally that much more satisfying, and he also reflected that he had never had a more welcome _cigarette_.

Of course, the thought promptly provoked him to compare this one to the last two cigarettes he'd smoked in the past twenty-four hours, but rather than shove them away in a knee-jerk reaction, he allowed his nicotine-soothed brain to recall the details. Objectively, the memories _were_ pleasurable, he admitted, and they weren't dangerous in and of themselves.

Perhaps if he could just detach the attendant sentiments from the memories, he wouldn't have to lock them away in a vault deep in his Mind Palace. They could be useful, a part of his mind tried to justify: the additional life experiences might lend certain insights into work in the future. It _was_ likely—he'd already realised that he had missed various nuances and motivations in past cases because of his inexperience. Ultimately that hadn't stopped him from solving them, of course, but he might have been able to crack them even sooner.

 _But_ , he understood as he took another drag, it wasn't actually feasible for him to dismiss one part and retain the other; the act and the feelings were too closely intertwined for him.

 _Why am I unable to divorce emotion and sex with the ease that so many other men seem to_? he thought in frustration as he inhaled the rich smoke of the cigarette into his lungs again. He generally found it so easy (effortless, really) to detach himself from others.

And yet he knew the answer at once—had known it as soon as he'd thought of the question. Setting aside the fact Irene wasn't 'others' (she was a remarkable force that was impossible to ignore, as he could so easily ignore most people), the _main_ reason was that for him sentiment had come first, and the lust was entirely predicated in his cerebral appreciation of The Woman: her mind, her wits, her cunning, and even her audacious streak. Without those compelling qualities, there would be no sexual attraction. ( _Not_ to say that his attraction to her physically was any less potent because of that—quite the reverse, he suspected.)

So unless he slept with someone else, someone ordinary, in order to gain those same insights albeit devoid of sentiment (a concept he found surprisingly repulsive and abhorrent despite its possible practicability), the memories of his sexual experiences would always be coloured by emotion.

 _But no, it's better to never foray into sex again—with anyone_ , he thought. He'd always been right not to risk it; the disadvantages severely outweighed any potential, unverified benefits. Though it was maddening to leave something so unresolved, when absolutely everything in his character objected to such a concept (especially the part of him that still clung to the idea of he and Irene) in the absence of other tolerable choices it was really the only option.

He nodded to himself, and took one final, deep pull of tobacco smoke, just as he sensed that he was no longer alone in the narrow portion of deck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, as ever, to my amazing readers and reviewers. Your feedback means so much to me! XOXO


	16. Recrimination

For several moments he ignored Irene, stretching out the time he could pretend to still be alone for as long as possible. But at last, when it became evident that he would've noticed her, he asked without turning around, "How did you find me?" His voice sounded flat and resigned, and yet that same small part of him felt almost gratified that she had set out to look for him.

"I had the feeling you might need a cigarette," she said from behind him, "so I tried to follow the scent of a Dunhill. They're quite distinctive, you know."

Yes, he knew. He frowned down at the smoldering end then flicked it out into the water, knowing that it was against at least six different types of regulation, but not caring.

He was no longer surprised by her uncanny insights, nor by how she was able to so clearly comprehend him, but her ability did both please and displease him. On one hand it was deeply refreshing that someone could understand and relate to him after his lifetime of dissonance with others, but it also reminded him of how exceptionally vulnerable he was to her, and whatever agenda she might have.

She brushed past him to lean her forearms against the railing and gaze out at the view as well, seeming particularly captivated by the lights' reflections dancing in the dark water. In the narrow space between the cargo containers, she was close: almost flush against his side. Too close for Sherlock's comfort, despite the calming properties of the cigarette.

But she just stood beside him, not speaking, and the combination of the psychological comfort of the dark, the ability to focus on a shared view rather than having to make eye contact, and yes, the lingering effects of the Dunhill, eventually relaxed him somewhat.

He didn't realise just _how_ relaxed (or perhaps, just _lax_ ) he had become until, unbidden and without any forethought, words suddenly burst from of his mouth—the exact words he'd been working to contain for the past two hours.

"Everything you said to me – about hacking into my mobile, and Mazari, and my brother. None of that was necessary," he vented accusingly. "You'd already convinced the man to let you go. So what was it, just _showing off_?"

She looked at him evenly as the words hung between them, and Sherlock was suddenly frustrated that he couldn't get a rise out of her, ever. He wanted her to shout back at him, to get angry, and perhaps reveal more than she intended, as he was inclined to do with her. After all, _they were the same,_ isn't that what she had said? Maybe they were alike in that way too—or would be, if she ever lost her composure.

"You wouldn't stop talking, I had to say something," she finally answered, somewhat blithely but still calm. It was a deflection and they both knew it.

"No. You didn't. You could've ignored me," he retorted in a terse voice. "What you said might have made Jarwar suspicious, it was too risky."

She straightened up from the railing and crossed her arms, for some reason watching _him_ warily. He raised his eyebrows and jerked his head once in an impatient, slightly aggressive nonverbal _Well?_

"He had already decided to let me go, he wasn't going to change his mind. Besides, he had no idea what any of it meant, and he didn't want to bother himself with trying to understand."

Even though he agreed with her, it was still more deflection; surely she knew how transparent she was being? And she _still_ hadn't answered his question.

He scowled, and Irene sighed next to him. It now did appear that the mask was slipping off slightly, but Sherlock couldn't trust his perception of her—if he ever could.

"I said all of that. . ." she pursed her lips then looked into his eyes with what looked like atypical effort, "so that you would know that I _could_ have done it on my own. If I proved that I didn't _need_ you in order to escape and complete the rest of your operation, you'd understand that whatever I might express to you, after. . . it wouldn't be because I had any ongoing ulterior motive and was attempting to manipulate you. It would be because it was true."

Sherlock's eyes moved back and forth as he processed what she was saying, weighing her words. Granted, she _could_ have hypothetically pulled it off without him—he wouldn't have been so appalled by her apparent betrayal if he hadn't completely believed in the viability of her plan. But he had already realised that, and it didn't exclude the possibility of a different, unknown agenda.

In the wake of his silence, a faintly mischievous smile tugged at the corner of her lips and she looked away from the harbour towards him. "And all right, perhaps there was also a _bit_ of showing off. Did it work? Did I impress you?"

Sherlock continued to gaze outward, giving every indication that he hadn't heard her words except for the slight pouting of his lips. Of _course_ she had impressed him—she rarely failed to do so (whereas everyone else rarely did at all), but he wasn't about to admit it.

"But you believed it, didn't you," Irene asked in the form of a statement, directly addressing the metaphorical elephant in the room. "That I was willing to sacrifice you in order to bargain for my own safety. That's why you were angry in the car. Angry at me for what I'd said, angry at yourself for believing me, and even for ever trusting me in the first place."

He hesitated, waging an internal war with himself, but finally confessed tensely, "You already know I did. You were very convincing—you. . .you said 'Sorry about dinner'." He despised the wounded tone that coloured his words, but even the memory of that still stung.

She nodded, looking towards the water again. "I suppose I couldn't resist giving you a taste of your own medicine in the end, but perhaps that part _was_ unnecessary," she admitted, actually looking somewhat contrite.

"Still," she murmured a moment later, "you let me get on with it. Even though you thought I was leaving you there to die, you didn't contradict my story. You didn't try to undermine me."

"No. . ." he said in a low, tight voice. "At first because I still trusted you and didn't want to sabotage your plan, but then when you had me convinced otherwise, I. . ." he trailed off, uncertain how to verbalise his thoughts, nor wanting to reveal too much of his hand. He cleared his throat. "I came to Karachi with the intent of rescuing you. Then you rescued _yourself_ when I failed. I wasn't going to stop you; it would have been counterproductive to the whole reason I'd come."

She tilted her head and considered his profile. "When you 'failed'? Did you feel like you somewhat deserved the 'consequences', then? Sherlock, you hardly fa—"

"I did," Sherlock interrupted obstinately. "I tried to convince him to let us go, you heard me. I didn't get anywhere." It was extremely difficult for him to admit that to himself, let alone aloud, but he felt almost masochistically compelled to speak the words to her.

She looked away with raised eyebrows, then turned back to him. "It was a mutual effort. You made him talk about his motivations," she said, her tone matter-of-fact. "I could've never used them against him, had you not done that first. You got him to say everything I needed to hear, about family, about obligation. . . This morning, when you said we made 'quite an adequate team': you were right." She continued to watch him, and although his mind was churning (particularly at that reference) he didn't respond and he kept his expression set. Finally she swung her penetrating gaze away and shifted forward again.

A minute, then two, then five passed in silence as they stood next to each other, both leaning their forearms on the ship's railing and looking out across the docks that would be their last image of Karachi.

And then without warning a deafening horn blew directly above them, and the rumbling vibrations and noise of the engines increased. With a jolt, the ship began to move away from its berth, and slowly, the view began to recede.

They both watched, unspeaking, as the shore pulled away, and the sight stirred up a far greater degree of internal conflict than Sherlock had anticipated.

Now that he was actually underway on the journey that would bring him home, he _was_ profoundly relieved that he would soon slide back into the comforting brand of chaos and excitement (a known quantity) that was his life, and escape the _volatile_ and _emotional_ variation of chaos that was hers.

And _yet_. . .he still found himself tormented by the prospect of leaving things unanswered, despite his earlier affirmations that it was the right choice. Their conversation had stirred up too many questions (as well as the deeper sentiments he was still trying to repress, inevitably) and his resolve was weakening. ...Not that it had been particularly staunch in the first place, he recognised wryly.

That was yet another treacherous thing about _love_ ; its whims were inexplicably fluid and capricious. In applied chemistry and other fields of science, states did not change _arbitrarily_ , but only when conditions were altered or new stimuli were introduced. There was no such stability or consistency now, he knew.

Case in point, his ongoing internal debate on how to proceed: (1) select the safer option and remain silent, but understand that he would never have answers to so many of his questions, or (2) risk the potentially dangerous consequences of the answers, but gain satisfaction that he was at least apprised of the situation (insofar as it _was_ possible to be apprised of such things).

Then abruptly—against his better judgment and in fact almost rebelliously—he decided, _To hell with it_. He knew that he was behaving rashly, but he was simply too accustomed to requiring answers, and sometimes he would have to go to unpleasant lengths to obtain data.

He took a low breath, gathered his courage and ignored the parts of him snarling _Shut Up_ , and resumed the conversation as if there had not been a twelve minute lull by asking, "So you're saying. . . you meant what you said. To Jarwar. Before I went back to the car."

In his peripheral vision he saw her start ever so slightly, and then give him a piercing, appraising look. "I've been trying to impress it upon you that I did—do," she said softly after another length of time. "I thought I made it clear."

"No," he disagreed coldly, suddenly wary again after asking such a question, and trying to regain some emotional distance. "I think it's the least clear of any of the many plays you've made yet, actually."

" _Plays_? Sherlock, you're so—!" she broke off with a short laugh that was a combination of frustration and what sounded like affection, and turned to look at him incredulously. "I've already proved that I don't _need_ to lie for any ulterior motives; I could've pulled off the rest of your plan myself. Besides, how can you ignore the fact that _you're_ the one who first deduced my sentiment? It's how you cracked my passcode, and if you hadn't guessed that, I never would've needed protection to begin with. You're not being rational."

His face flushed with colour; for him this was an incredibly insulting allegation, and what made it even worse was that he knew at a certain level that she was correct. And what made it yet another shade worse _still_ was the realisation that there was nothing he could do about it. Unlike superfluous trivia, he couldn't just 'delete' unwanted feelings—no matter how hard he tried, apparently.

"The real reason you're so angry is because you're hurt," Irene stated, interrupting his thoughts in a knowing tone that cut to the quick. "You're insecure and distrustful of me after seeing how I manipulated Jarwar, and you're afraid I've been manipulating you in the same way, this entire time. . . You'd finally allowed yourself to feel, which has made you angry and vulnerable enough, only to then come to believe—convince yourself—that it was all just a calculated manoeuvre on my part. But Sherlock, it wasn't."

He scoffed derisively to cover his true reaction to her words, but didn't meet her eyes, and she leaned over to grasp his hand and repeated with new emotion, "It wasn't."

"Also if you'll recall, you let me think _I_ was going to die, too, for the sake of the overall efficacy of your strategy," she pointed out, though without any spite. "I had to do the same."

"It is not the same," Sherlock said through a stiff jaw, feeling the leftover and irrational flare of anger that seemed to have been unleashed by her correct identification of his thoughts and emotions—even while cognitively he understood that she had saved both their lives in a spectacular fashion. His hand clenched under hers and again his heart-rate increased painfully at the mere _thought_ of how he'd felt in that moment: the triply devastating forces of a broken heart, a gross error in judgment, and mortal treachery. "I didn't lead you to believe that I had betrayed you."

"Oh no?" she asked, now sounding a touch cool and pulling her hand back again. "Well I _felt_ betrayed—like you'd callously abandoned me to my execution. And moreover, I thought that I'd failed my _self_ for miscalculating how you really felt, and foolishly placing all of my trust and hope in you. Does that sound familiar?"

He pursed his lips and stared determinedly down into the choppy blue-black water, but she correctly interpreted his silence as acknowledgment.

"The parallels weren't intentional; you obviously know that I didn't _plan_ for that to happen," she murmured, her voice softer again, and he felt a foreign prickle in his eyes and swallowed, still watching the waves. "But Jarwar was so very easy to read, and I did what he needed me to do. With his devotion to the family, there was no way he could reconcile himself to my murder if he saw me as a vulnerable mother. But at the same time he needed _some_ one to 'pay', to fulfill _his_ family's need for recompense. So I had to offer him you, and to make him feel good enough about it, and justified enough in it, so that he would fully align himself with me, making him susceptible to what happened next."

"I _know_ that," Sherlock snapped. Of _course_ it was all so obvious now, in retrospect; he didn't need her to explain it to him like he was an idiot. But it had been a different matter then—she had been so horridly convincing.

"But it seems that you were quite ready to believe I was prepared to betray you," she said, almost echoing his own thoughts, though from her perspective.

"Yes, well," Sherlock started, feeling defensive and taking the offensive in response. "Despite my feelings, despite the acknowledged fact that I ca—" he abruptly shut his mouth with a frown, then restarted in a more confident, ringing tone: "There are certain realities that I cannot ignore. Realities of who I am—and who _you_ are."

"And who is that?" she challenged immediately, her head swiveling up. Her expression didn't hold a trace of amusement now, and her eyes looked large and flinty.

But he refused to back down to that intimidating stare, and he ploughed on in an even more strident tone. "Someone who uses the euphemistic term 'misbehave' to refer to her acts of sedition, blackmail, and confidential information trading—Someone who _chose_ to work with Jim Moriarty."

"Ah," she nodded shortly, turning towards him with one elbow resting on the rail. "Do you want to talk about Jim, Sherlock?"

His jaw clenched as he continued to face forward. "You were either his pawn, or it was _your_ idea to undermine BondAir and place countless lives in danger. Neither are particularly flattering options."

"It was both—or neither," she parried. "It was business. I had amassed some extraordinary information, so as I do in the rare cases when I'm not personally the best, I engaged a consultant to advise me on how to proceed with it in the most advantageous way."

"Jim Moriarty," Sherlock interjected in a flat voice.

"He became very excited when he found out about a certain _other_ classified code I had in my possession, and told me that he knew just the person to break it," she continued, his interruption not breaking her stride.

"Sherlock Holmes," Sherlock said, in the same bored-sounding tone.

"But he said that since _he_ couldn't approach you because you knew who he was, he wouldn't charge me for his services as long as _I_ could get close to you somehow, so that you would crack it for me. He said that he would compensate me financially for it, as well. . . I wasn't really aware of who you were at that point, let alone his fixation on you. It was completely impersonal for me then."

"Ah, and that's why he left the pool so abruptly," Sherlock muttered quietly, thinking aloud. "As soon as he discovered that he could access the code from you, he knew he'd need me alive. I've speculated as much, but I've never had proof."

"The threat to her royal highness—that was just a construct to pull you in, thanks again to Jim's knowledge of your ties to the upper echelons of British government. Your _family_ ties," Irene elaborated. "By that point I'd already researched you and figured you out, what made you tick, and so setting up the bait was incredibly easy. As soon as I saw you in my sitting room in that ridiculous disguise, I knew the game was on."

Sherlock flushed at the concept of being so transparent—and consequently, easy to manipulate—but then again, he was only that way to her. . . she was the exception. . .

He squeezed his eyes shut at that phrase, as if he could physically block out its implications and the memories it stirred.

"You know the rest. It stopped being a game, it stopped being impersonal. . ." she concluded, sounding contemplative.

Her words hit him squarely in the gut, resonating with the thoughts that had already evoked memories of their exchange in the dark of that hotel room, when he had laid himself more bare to another person than he ever had before—physically, of course, but moreover psychologically.

"You recite a litany of my. . . 'misbehaviours'," she continued (drawing out the word with relish, in apparent defiance of his criticism of the term), "as if to imply that you find me problematically amoral." She hesitated, and then her voice became more thoughtful. "I don't know if I'd call myself 'amoral', but _if_ I am, then so are you. When have you hurt someone to get what you wanted? Thought nothing of manipulating a situation to get at something or someone? You're not inherently or profoundly concerned with justice, it's the pursuit _itself_ that drives you. We may have different motivating incentives, but we behave the same way to get what we want."

"And yet people don't die when I'm involved, Irene," he asserted somewhat imperiously, though the attitude did feel slightly false—and like _he_ was the one deflecting, now.

"Oh? What about that apartment block and a certain 'gas leak,' then?" she retorted immediately.

He immediately flashed indignant. "I didn't cause that," he replied heatedly. "You can't _possibly_ suggest that I could've known that the woman had personally interacted with Moriarty—none of the others had—and that she would begin to describe him. When I did realise it, I attempted to stop her."

"Nor did _I_ know what that code would contain, or that it had the potential to cost lives," she rejoined, less piqued but just as intensely. "Except that in my case they're still only _hypothetical_ lives. I admit that I can be _plenty_ naughty, but in this case let's lay the blame firmly where it belongs, shall we? For each of us, it's with Jim Moriarty."

"Whom _you_ sought out," Sherlock pointed out, changing tact but still fervent, clamping his hands harder around the railing and breathing faster.

"Are you going to tell me you didn't?" she asked bluntly. "When you _first_ heard about him? Oh, don't look so surprised; it's obvious that you would have. Except that you were just _intrigued_ , and that interest cost lives. _My_ contact with him was necessitated by business."

"Don't try to diminish—" he turned it around with a sneer, a trace of sardonic laughter in his voice as if to imply she was absurd to attempt such a thing.

"I'm not," she interrupted, hers becoming correspondingly softer. "Because I don't believe that I need to. I'm merely pointing out that your judgments are fallacies—excuses, really. Or that they at _least_ should be applied to you as well."

 _We are the same, you and I_ , her words came back to him yet again.

He opened his mouth to retort, but found that he had no response or rejoinder left to make—she had effectively countered him on every point or reason he raised. As only ever happened with her (on the plane, during her ruse with Jarwar, and now), he had nothing more to argue. His posture deflated and he leaned back against the railings, feeling utterly bewildered, fatigued, and resigned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I drew a quick and messy sketch to go along with this chapter, which may be found here:
> 
> mllechloe.deviantart.com/#/d52vwfe


	17. Reconciliation

As he had in the car just before their captive had stirred from unconsciousness, Sherlock hit a point of emotional saturation, and he could no longer uphold his ever-weakening fortifications against the surging emotions. And through the miasma of alien confusion, he had one final epiphany—but it was staggering.

He understood that since he'd no longer had the mission's distractions to divert him from his feelings for Irene, he had erected barriers of his own creation to prevent himself (protect himself) from having to fully face the terrifying reality of his situation. And the actual reason he had been so angry that Irene had told Jarwar she cared for Sherlock was because her words smashed those carefully maintained walls and confronted him with that truth...

He had never genuinely believed that she'd had yet another personal agenda—that was just the final construct he had created to prevent himself from facing the evidence that he might be in love with another person, and that she appeared to reciprocate. (It had been one thing to think such a thing in the midst of a post-coital haze, when various hormones and satiated pleasure painted a rosy picture that might not be entirely accurate. But when standing in the distinctly unromantic setting of a cargo container platform, in the stream of a chilling ocean wind, the realisation held far more legitimacy—and weight.)

And yet, he'd been justified in attempting to keep his cognitive distance from this truth, because just as he'd subconsciously feared, it was far harder to endure than the created constructs. Because what the _hell_ was he supposed to do with the knowledge? he thought in a mix of desperation and disgust. A lovelorn consultant detective was of no use to anyone, very least of all himself. And furthermore, her very life depended on her remaining abroad.

He was damned either way, he understood, and he couldn't see a way out of it. (And if _he_ couldn't see a way out of it...)

If they were to somehow arrange it so that she could safely remain in London (which seemed impossible in and of itself, but for the sake of argument. . .), he couldn't pretend that experimenting with this sort of relationship wouldn't seriously impose on his existing life at Baker Street—even in ways beyond compromising his brainwork. And he _liked_ his existing life.

Alternatively, if they went forward with his preparations and she relocated to New York City, this was all futile. The emotions he felt for her could not be given an opportunity to manifest or develop in any way, and were therefore utterly pointless—except in their (prodigious) ability to confound and wreck him.

"What do you want from me, Irene?" he muttered at last, staring at his hands. He'd meant for the words to sound caustic but to his ears they sounded beseeching, and he knew that in a sense, a part of him was just like all those clients she'd had: he was begging her for instruction—and her mercy.

The thing was, he didn't know if 'mercy' meant her dictating how they were going to proceed, or dropping the matter completely.

But for the first time, she was silent, and when he finally risked a peripheral glance towards her profile, he was somewhat unnerved to find her looking uncharacteristically subdued. Had his tone really hurt her? It seemed unthinkable, she was always so unfazed by his bouts of emotion.

"That's not the right question," she finally answered, still staring out over the water towards the port lights that were now becoming pinpoints in the distance.

That assertion got his attention, and he turned to her, completely nonplussed. So it hadn't been his tone, but some supposed inaccuracy...? She hadn't been downcast, but disappointed...?

"It's not what _I_ want from you," she elaborated softly. "As much as I enjoy the dynamic we share... I'm _not_ actually your adversary, Sherlock." She finally looked up to meet his stare, and her blue-eyed gaze seemed to penetrate directly through his eyes, and radiate into his chest, causing his respiration and heart-rate to skip, then double. "Given all your powers of observation, can't you see—you're not really arguing against _me_ , you're arguing against yourself."

He swallowed hard. What she said hadn't been a revelation (although just barely, and she had almost certainly realised it before he had). But hearing it spoken out loud compelled him to justify himself to her. "I'm trying—" he mentally flinched at the passive words. "I _am_ acting as I think is best... for both of our interests."

She cocked an eyebrow at him, and that one minute gesture seemed to somehow completely undermine and discredit his words.

He scrutinised her. "What is it that _you_ want?" he repeated, this time dropping the last three words, and he heard how editing them out completely changed the tone of the question. Correspondingly, she actually smiled, although it was faint and looked somewhat sad and introspective.

Still, his motivation for asking the question was the same, and as ever, she perceived his subtext just as clearly as if he had spoken it aloud.

"You think I hold all the answers, and while that's flattering... it isn't true," she said wryly, then pointed out: "There _is_ no 'right answer'."

"I know," he insisted too quickly, and he frowned and started again. "I know that. If that were the case..." he trailed off, his jaw working, unsure of how to finish the sentence.

"But it doesn't _matter_ ," she cut in, fervent. "Not to people like us, Sherlock."

He looked up, his eyes widening at her words.

"We're not an orthodox couple who needs to concern ourselves about 'where things are going'," she continued. "In your words, 'how _dull'_. It's not as if I intend to marry and I meant what I said to you about children. I know you're the same. So what does it _matter_ what comes tomorrow or next week?"

He had no answer for her, but her words were making a strange sort of sense, and a peculiar feeling of hope suddenly curled in his chest. It resonated with what he had actually thought that morning, in the seclusion of the hotel room when they had been wrapped up in each other—before the fallout of the day's events.

"What I do know is what I'm feeling, and... you can't deny you feel the same way."

She lifted her gaze to his face, made and held eye contact, and then stepped deliberately into his personal space. He stilled at once, though internally his systems all reacted riotously to the shot of adrenaline that had been released by her proximity, and the look of intent on her face.

He recognised his collection of symptoms as being similar to those that would present during a panic attack: besides heavy breathing, there was slight vertigo, trembling, and heart palpitations, among others. He had always known that emotions were powerful motivators—he had seen more than his share of crimes of passion—but he was shocked that it could incite such a powerful physical reaction, as well. Even for all his wariness, he had _still_ underestimated sentiment.

And yet, he couldn't deny that more than anything, he craved to close the small distance that _did_ remain between them, and embrace her. He'd wanted to do it all afternoon in varying degrees, but it had never been as intense a compulsion as it was in that moment.

"I know you're inexperienced with all of this, so here's a lesson," she murmured, leaning forward, and he couldn't tear his eyes away from her lips; they had somehow become singularly compelling. Her voice dropped and became even more breathless. "It doesn't have to be all or nothing... There are countless shades of grey in between. And the grey area is my _speciality_."

Her statement was rational, and he felt his hesitation waver, and then further dissipate in the wake of the physical arousal that was beginning to take over his body's physical and mental processes. Doubt was being replaced by desire, and the pain of confusion was being overtaken by the ache of being physically apart from her.

"We're here together now, and this is an opportunity I doubt we'll have again. And I'm a girl who _does_ like to indulge while I can, and damn the consequences."

"Yes, I've noticed that..." he managed to say, though his voice was hoarse.

She looked down to her right, and he followed her gaze to see their hands resting inches apart on the railing. Slowly, as if she were afraid he would bolt again, she brushed the tops of his knuckles with her fingertips experimentally. He winced slightly, but in this case it wasn't because of her touch; they were still bruised from the punches he had landed the day before. He saw a trace of confusion in her eyes, and in response he turned his palm upward. Such a small gesture, and yet it took great effort on his part and implied volumes, and The Woman's lips stretched into a small but radiant smile.

Slowly their hands intertwined, and the physiological reactions intensified even further as he watched his fingers lace together with hers. This time the initial contact wasn't instigated while he was high on adrenaline and accomplishment, feeling reckless and provoked. It was slow and deliberate and utterly nerve-wracking, yet magnetic. His heart was pounding erratically, and he felt hyper-aware of each one of his senses: the sight of her dilated pupils and slightly parted lips, the scent of the salty air, a hint of petrol, and the hotel shampoo wafting from her hair, the sound of their mutually heavy breathing and the rustle of her completely impractical dress, and of course the firm but gentle pressure of her fingers. For such a (deceptively) straightforward touch, it was incredibly erotic.

Then, just as her palm slid up against his and she leaned towards him with her face upraised, a wave of intense panic surged in him again, and it was an even more powerful and overriding force than the mortal fear he'd experience earlier in the day.

The difference was, _now_ the panic wasn't tied to the fact that he thought she was manipulating him, or because he didn't know what would happen with the two of them in the future, or any other constructed pretenses. In fact, there wasn't _any_ rational cause for it that he could discern; it was purely the manifestation of a deep-seated and instinctive fear-response to fight or flee, and it obliterated everything else, even the primal feeling of lust that had been taking root and blossoming within him.

"I _can't..._ " he uttered with a low agonised moan, and he leaned back and jerked his hand away, feeling wretched in a way that was entirely new to him and almost unbearably horrible to experience, but still not as overwhelmingly potent as his nameless panic.

"Why," she asked, lifting her chin. Her tone was dispassionate but even in Sherlock's state he could detect the almost imperceptible quaver in her voice, and her eyes had become faintly glossy. "What are you _so_ afraid of?"

Now frustration inflected her voice more obviously, and Sherlock knew that it was in reaction to both his withdrawal, and the fact she thought she'd finally talked him out of all his reservations.

"I'm—I'm not—" he struggled to say.

"You _are_ ," she retorted as colour blushed the tops of her cheekbones, and through his breakdown he identified anger on top of exasperation.

So he had finally pushed her far enough to incite her anger, and it did indeed show the woman beneath the mask, but he didn't want to see it now; it only made things worse.

She stared into his eyes for the length of two heartbeats until he had to look away from the intensity of the gaze, and she turned on her heel to walk away from him. But he had seen her lips tremble, and her gaze reflected all pain and angst he was feeling as well. It reminded him of the expression she had worn while he'd cracked her passcode, though intensified many times over.

But this time he was far more susceptible to it. The combination of seeing her back turned firmly against him while she began to walk away from him, and recognising the deep disappointment mirrored in her own eyes broke through the overwhelming ( _yes_ ) fear. There _was_ something worse than his own personal demons and the panic they unleashed: the suddenly unbearable idea of a missed chance—of losing a fleeting and somehow precious moment that would likely never come again.

He lunged forward on one leg and caught her around the elbow before she had moved out of range, and in one movement, he spun her back towards him and pulled her into his arms.

He had expected her to pull away and glare at him glacially, but instead she stood stiffly in his arms for only a fraction of a second ( _shock_ , he understood) before she pressed herself against him, clutching his arms.

The first thing he registered was tactile: the skin on her arms felt icy to the touch in the short-sleeved dress she wore, and he pulled away from her just long enough to tuck her under his greatcoat and shield them both against the increasingly chilling sea wind.

They remained wrapped up in each other for a moment, not speaking, and though Sherlock knew what he wanted—what he _needed_ , the lingering fear was hideously tenacious.

"Irene... I can't be who you want me to be," he said against her hair in a low and tight voice. "I'm not..." he couldn't finish, and swallowed, burrowing his face deeper into the crook of her neck. The skin he found there was soft and delicate, and smelled familiarly alluring. It was a scent that had come to evoke extremely vivid memories, and responses.

She had stiffened slightly again at his words. "I know _exactly_ who you—" she was retorting, but then without thinking, Sherlock pressed his lips against the spot.

And though the unconscious act had been somewhat chaste, the sensation, combined with her scent, unleashed an avalanche of suppressed tenderness and desire—more formidable than any argument she could make, and searing through his panic and annihilating the fear.

She fell silent as one soft brush of his lips led to another, which led to another, traveling in a chain up her throat with progressively less gentleness, and greater force and speed, before their faces came together. After a brief but intense moment where they breathed heavily, noses brushing and eyes downcast, he cradled his fingers against her cheekbones, looked into her eyes, and then found her mouth, where he pressed a soft but sensual kiss against her lips.

Making a small noise in the back of her throat, she dug her fingertips into his lower back, just above his trousers, and the passion of her touch burned into him. He answered with his own low moan, and tightened his arms around her waist before tilting his head and thrusting his tongue against her lips, which parted immediately to him.

As he melted into her, the sense memory of everything they had shared the night before and that morning came flooding back to him, and he backed her up against the corrugated siding of one of the containers that surrounded them, bending his knees slightly and tilting his head to get that much closer, kiss her that much more deeply. With a sense of elated abandon, he gave himself permission to fully submit to the sensations, and to embrace those attendant emotions that he could not separate from the physical experience.

Several minutes later he leaned back, panting, to check her expression; her face was flushed and dazzling, and eyes were hard with the same emotion he knew was shining in his.

He felt a shiver pass through her, and he pulled her closer against him again, holding her even more tightly than before.

"Cold?" he asked, still looking down into her face.

"No," she answered with a slightly mischievous smile, as she tilted her head back to look up him from under her dark fringe of eyelashes, and for the first time since the Jarwar incident he gave a small smile of his own.

Because, astonishingly, he knew what just she meant...

In fact, he understood that if he hadn't had _such_ a depth of feeling, he would be back in the cabin now, alone, or holed up in some other obscure part of the ship. Because as compelling as her words had been, and as much as she had perhaps _intellectually_ swayed him, he finally understood that it was simply not possible for reason to trump sentiment. People (including, it must be admitted, Sherlock himself) could not be rationally convinced _in_ to or _out_ of their emotional responses—as much as he had tried to disprove that maxim in the past two days. Despite what he would prefer to believe, the heart unequivocally ruled the head—and logic had no place in matters of the heart.

Rather, it could only take an even _more_ powerful sentiment to overcome such a strong emotional response. In their case, it was his regard and desire for Irene that had overwhelmed his fear of intimacy—his fear of finally and _completely_ surrendering himself to his feelings.

And yet, somehow, his head and his heart were in accord with one another, an unexpected synchronisation that frankly astounded Sherlock. Her arguments had convinced him intellectually, and the strength of his feelings for Irene had decided the rest.

But it was fitting; it was the perfect embodiment of the complementary dynamic that he and The Woman shared.

Smiling even wider, he shrugged out of his coat and put it around her shoulders, commenting, "I always did think this coat suited you," before leaning over and tugging up the collar around her ears.

"Sherlock Holmes, acting like a gentleman?" she asked in disbelief, a teasing glint in her eye.

"Tell anyone and I'll emphatically deny it," he replied flatly, but after a beat his face broke into another grin and then, taking her hand, he pulled her towards Staircase D.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update: Another set of quotes from some Sherlock actors on Irene and Sherlock's relationship :)
> 
> Benedict Cumberbatch: "I think he meets a like mind. That's the fundamental attraction. He meets someone who is a challenge, who is rather good, and it takes him by surprise - not because he's a misogynist, not because he views women as any lesser species; he views them as equals. It's just that, from his point of view, pretty much all people other than himself are a bit stupid. The fact that he meets someone who is a worthy opponent, of either sex, is of great intrigue. There's a side of her that's utterly mysterious to him, and he has to break through why he can't read her. The fact that she is a difficult objective to overcome is what attracts him to her. She's a puzzle, as most of us are to each other in relationships. It's extreme here, because of the way they are and who they are and how they live their lives. If there is attraction, it's through these masks that are constantly shifting in an effort to engineer control. That dance is a very, very entertaining one, and very witty. It's interesting to see this man slightly touched and moved, and possibly humanized by this experience."
> 
> I think that this is brilliantly well-said; I just have a minor modification to make. . . In my version of events, he is indisputably humanized by the experience ;)
> 
> And Lara Pulver's take:
> 
> "It's a mind-game, I think, for those two characters. They're mirrors; they look at each other and they see themselves, and that's both intriguing for them and also scary as hell."
> 
> And: "They're both very flawed human beings, and I think she is riddled with insecurity, and is hugely vulnerable and quite... Quite desperately wants to feel loved. To feel loved, to feel adored, and to feel what being in love is like, as does he to a certain degree... There's this moment where he [Sherlock] just holds her hand, and it melts her heart... It's so sensual because there's these two people who could stand absolutely stark-naked in front of each other, and it doesn't resonate. You've got all this stuff going on with them, and mind games going on, but when he touches her hand, and it's like they're making love."


	18. Victory in Surrender

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you're interested, this is the Alexander McQueen dress I imagine Irene wearing throughout the story: tinyurl.com/bwzhy7g
> 
> Her underwear is by Bordelle, because I'm pretty sure "The Woman" would own their entire collection of lingerie (this definitely being the least scandalous of the line): tinyurl.com/7zodfw9

As they drew closer to the level where their suite was situated, Sherlock began to feel far more winded than the number of steps warranted, and when they arrived on their deck he found himself tightening his grasp on Irene's hand and quickening his pace. Next to him she let out a soft huff of breath and lightly squeezed back, but she didn't speak, and she matched her gait to his.

When they approached the door, he fumbled for the key and nearly missed fitting it into the lock in the first try, then, with a twist of his wrist, it swung open and revealed the scene he had fled only thirty-five minutes before. So much had changed in the intervening half hour, and yet not nearly as much as he'd have formerly preferred to believe. Really, the only thing that had evolved was his own acceptance of his sentiment—though the difference of that one critical factor profoundly altered his perception of everything else.

They stepped inside the room, and when she closed the door behind them, it shut out all the roar of the wind, churning ocean wake, and rumbling engines, leaving only the noise of their elevated breathing—and a faint buzzing in Sherlock's mind. It was as if his brain were spinning and whirring in a final effort to detect a flaw in his decision or find 'the catch,' but it wasn't clicking onto anything. There were no longer any barriers—real or imagined—that would come in between what he wanted, and what he would have.

Still, he stood frozen in the middle of the sitting room while she remained at the door, her hand on the handle, and the moment stretched out between them, lengthened by the intensity of their shared gaze. He knew that the temporary paralysis was no longer caused by any misgivings he felt about himself, though—nor about her. Nor was it due to any hesitation over being physically intimate. Instead perhaps he was simply nervous, he thought, then amended, _unquestion_ ably nervous, yes. It was more than just arousal that had sent adrenaline coursing through his veins, igniting his entire nervous system.

And yet there was no doubt that he felt the full power of that force as well, and he recognised that the fear and the arousal were both direct results of his ownership of his feelings, and the subsequent honesty and intimacy that came with them.

As they continued to stare at each other, both wearing flushed cheeks that were coloured from more than the wind, and wide, dark eyes, his brain finally abandoned its last efforts at due diligence. Instead, he saw flashes of a dozen different scenarios, each depicting what he would like to do with her in the upcoming hours—various explicit visions of the two of them reenacting the events of the previous night and morning, as well as attempting additional acts that he had never experienced or even really considered, but were somehow now displaying in his mind in sharp, compelling focus.

He felt his pulse quicken and his cheeks flame, and she seemed to unconsciously respond to his physiological indicators by moistening her lips with the top of her tongue and tightening her grasp on the doorknob. Still they stared at one another, as if transfixed.

Then, after only eight seconds passed since they had entered the room (though it had felt much longer), Sherlock cleared his throat.

"My coat. . . it really does suit you," he stated, and his voice came out in such a low rasp that it almost broke.

"You already said that," she pointed out with a low, melodic chuckle, and it seemed to break some sort of spell.

"Did. . ." he trailed off blinking, and recalled that he _had_ already verbalised the politer version of the thought that had been cycling through his mind on a loop for the past four minutes, then said: "Well. It's worth repeating, apparently." His throat was dry and he swallowed convulsively.

She gave him a sly, pleased smile. "Look at you, you look like you just want to _pounce_ on me. Have I touched upon some fantasy you didn't even realise you had?"

His lips tightened—not in any sort of displeasure, but in acknowledgement that she really had struck a nerve. He'd have never guessed that he could be so susceptible to something he'd previously dismissed as so trivial and frivolous—but that had been before he had met The Woman. "Possibly. . ." he started, then without missing a beat, he seamlessly corrected, "yes. Another first, it would seem."

One perfect eyebrow arched in question. "Are you trying to tell me that you've never fantastised before?"

 _There was no one_ about _whom to fantastise, before_ , he thought. His sex life had begun, and, he surmised, would end with Irene Adler. "Not about sex, there are too many other things in my brain—s'never enough room for something like that to be allowed to take up space," he answered mindlessly. "When I was a child I had plenty of fantasies, as all children do, but by the time I reached adolescence I. . ." Suddenly he became all too conscious that he was rambling like an idiot, and he shut his mouth and shook his head impatiently.

"But now?" she pressed, apparently eager to return to topic as well. Her breathing was shallow, her chest visibly rising and falling beneath the thick textured wool of his coat, and all that was visible of her iris was the thinnest ring of dark blue. The rest was eclipsed by a well of black.

"Now I want. . ." he started, feeling inexorably drawn into those depths.

"What?" she pressed, a coy smile curling up at the edge of her mouth, and once again he saw the illicit images flicker tantalisingly before his mind's eye.

" _Everything_ ," he uttered, his voice raw and primal.

For a fraction of a second Sherlock saw Irene's eyes widen, then she dropped her hand from the doorknob, turned towards him, and met his gaze in electrifying dare. "And what are you going to do about that?" she prompted, her tone honeyed and insinuating.

He barely heard her question over the deafening roar of blood in his ears, and the rest of the room faded out as his vision was reduced down to her face, which seared into his focus in extraordinary high definition. He didn't have to think about the answer; before she had even finished enunciating the last word, he had instinctively closed the distance between them with two long strides. He leaned down at the precise moment she tilted her chin up, and their lips came together in a hard, bruising collision.

Again time seemed to lose its conventional meaning for Sherlock, measured by their progressively deepening kisses and increasingly heated sighs rather than by seconds and minutes. Their cabin had taken on the same isolated, slightly surreal quality that the hotel in Karachi had, and he felt as if they were the sole passengers on the entire ship. He suspected that even if they stood on the steps of the Anteros Fountain at midday, all of Piccadilly Circus—hell, all of _London_ , perhaps—would fade away if she kissed him this way. . . She drew and monopolised the focus of his every sense and thought.

Suddenly and reflexively, Sherlock grasped her hips with both hands, and pulled her against him in a rough grinding motion, surprising both of them with his audacity. They broke apart abruptly and he looked down into Irene's face, which reflected back at him all of his own feelings of intoxicated arousal. Then, as if that had been their cue, they began to stagger towards the bedroom together: she stumbling out of her shoes and starting to unbutton his shirt, he unwrapping his scarf and dropping it to the ground, and then fumbling with the coat he had partially fastened for her when they'd been outside. A part of him wished he could somehow strip her out of her dress and undergarments while keeping her in his coat, but he would table that emergent fantasy, for now.

Just inside the small bedroom Sherlock pressed his form along the lean line of Irene's, trapping her body between his own and the door-frame and pinioning her wrists above her head so that his shirt was left a third undone, gaping open around his throat. She released his lips and with a playfully insolent glint in her blue eyes she deliberately canted her hips forward, but he immediately reclaimed her mouth and tightened his grasp on her wrists, retorting with the same movement against her.

Despite the exchange, Sherlock knew that this time there would be no real element of rivalry. . . they wouldn't be competitively comparing the other's pulse-rate or assessing whose skin was more flushed or pupils more dilated. Instead, this was a time to consummate all that had passed between them: all that had been hard-won and everything that had been resolved.

Irene freed her wrists from his grip and slid her hands down the lines of his arms and over the planes of his heaving chest, before she wrapped them around his waist. Sherlock felt her try to grasp the material of his tight-fitting shirt, but after she couldn't gain ahold of it, she slipped her fingertips under his trousers' waistband so that she could yank the hem free with a slightly uncontrolled jerk.

Sighing in satisfaction, she immediately glided her hands beneath the fabric and clutched his back, flattening her palms against his tensed muscles. He shivered at the cool caress against his bare, overheated skin, and the fine hairs on his torso and arms rose automatically in response.

Sherlock watched the look of pleased satisfaction flit openly across her face, and he realised he could fully comprehend her expressions and body language—she was deliberately and candidly revealing her true emotions to him. It was as if he had finally grasped the grammar of a foreign language so that all the disparate vocabulary he knew could finally link together and form explicable ideas. . . He might have known what individual gestures or expressions meant, but now they came together to portray the full richness of everything she was feeling, and the openness and raw vulnerability he could perceive was almost as intimate as any physical act they shared—and just as stimulating.

Irene smiled, clearly comprehending the gist of his thoughts (after all, she'd never had difficulty discerning _his_ feelings) and in response she withdrew her hands from beneath his shirt and pushed him gently on the centre of his chest. He collapsed back against the edge of the double bed, and as he eagerly toed off first one shoe, then the other, he continued to look up into her face with wanton, hungry eyes.

Maintaining that hypnotic yet provocative eye contact, she leaned back and pulled several pins from her hair so that the secured, coiled locks she had carefully rearranged in the aftermath of her "execution" scene cascaded in soft waves across her back and shoulders. The move immediately softened her features and transformed her back into the woman who had begun to seduce him in his London flat, and who had then closed the deal in a hotel room four thousand miles away later. It struck him that her hairstyle was a calculated reflection of the persona she wished to project. The updo was rigid and severe, and corresponded with the professional characteristics of 'The Woman'. And her loose waves weren't any less contrived at times, although Sherlock felt certain that this situation wasn't one of them.

The effect was immediate and incendiary. Making a low noise in the back of his throat, he wrapped his fingers around her hips and tugged her more tightly against him so that her knees hit the mattress on either side of his thighs. He felt completely consumed with lust and admiration for her ( _The_ Woman, indeed), and fleetingly wondered where this vast and seemingly inexhaustible well of passion had originated. He understood that his desire had been ignited by the sentiment he felt, but the sheer _strength_ of it was astounding to him. Had the propensity to feel this intensely truly just lain dormant within him, lurking and waiting to be let loose by one person—the one woman who mattered? It seemed incredible to him. And yet. . .

"Second law of. . .thermodynamics," he panted almost in answer to himself, pushing his palms roughly up her body to cup her breasts through the coat. And although he may have unknowingly harboured a fantasy borne from the circumstances of their first meeting, when nothing had lain between the smooth expanse of her skin and its lining, he now found the thick fabric frustrating. It obscured her shape and didn't permit him to feel the texture and heat of her through it. Now that he knew the sensual and somehow luxurious sensation of skin against skin, he craved to experience it again.

"The second law of thermodynamics?" she repeated a moment later after he hadn't elaborated, although her voice was distant and sounded distracted. He had slid his hands under the coat and was dragging his fingertips up the back of her bare legs, whilst his mouth fastened on the sliver of skin revealed just above the scooped neckline of her dress and between the open lapels of his coat.

Sherlock hummed in the back of his throat, and then exerted firm but gentle pressure against the backs of her knees, so that her weight shifted forward, and she straddled his lap, the edges of the coat wide open, and the hem of her dress riding up her thighs. Impatiently, Sherlock shoved the coat off her shoulders and it pooled to a heap on the floor, immediately forgotten.

At once he stretched up to reach her uncovered throat, and in between nuzzling kisses and light nips along her external jugular vein and under her jaw, he growled, "It states. . .that heat cannot flow. . .on its _own_. . .from an area of cold. . .to an area of. . .hot."

When she didn't respond except for a breathy sigh at the word 'hot', he tilted his head back and looked into her face, his eyes unfocused. "Metaphor," he said almost disdainfully, although there was no actual scorn behind his tone. She'd had him thinking figuratively since they reunited, so it was almost inevitable that he would verbalise one.

"Meaning. . .it took _you_ to show me, I could be. . .like this. . . I always had the. . ." He shook his head dismissively, abandoning the effort. He couldn't really express the complexity of the comparison in his admittedly sub-par mental state, and his limited oxygen intake was an additional handicap. Instead, he trailed off and nudged his hips upward against her to convey his meaning.

She laughed, a low, delighted sound. "Trust Sherlock Holmes to express his feelings through a physics concept," she observed, her eyes bright with what looked like genuine amusement and affection, before she dragged her fingertips through his hair, then tugged the ends down to angle his mouth up to hers. His lips curved into a small acknowledging smile against hers, before the whisper of their joined mouths and the heady sensation of her tongue stroking his distracted him. That sweet, slow slide, contrasted with the pressure of her on his lap, and combined with the sharp tug on his scalp made him nearly delirious from sensory stimulation, and he groaned deeply in his throat and grabbed her thighs, pressing her closer to him.

Somehow through the haze of his prurience, he was struck with awe at how this experience was yet again so very different than their previous two encounters. He wasn't sure how he would label it out of the selection of terms he'd compiled early that morning (he would need to accrue a much larger sample of data for comparison. . .) but it was somehow much more affecting and poignant than before—even than their unhurried and sensual pre-dawn tryst.

 _I do know why_ , he thought, his heart-rate accelerating in a way than had nothing to do with his arousal, though their mouths continued to brush, connect, and melt into one another. While Irene had undoubtedly diagnosed and subsequently lit the initial spark between them, he now saw the two of them as equals in _every_ way.

He had admired her cleverness and wit since their first memorable meeting, so much so that it did translate into very real physical attraction for the first time in his life. But he now recognised that she was unreservedly his _full_ intellectual peer, and in turn he felt that he had become her match in his capacity to feel, and to express that depth of feeling.

And, sure of that equality, he felt like an empowered and fully-involved participant as they moved forward. Sex was no longer something that was happening _to_ him; it was now something in which he was actively (and enthusiastically) invested. It was the difference between being knocked over by a rogue wave and submerged without warning or any preparation, and taking a deep breath before in diving headfirst with both eyes wide open, and letting the water envelop him. If he did feel that drowning sensation again, it was because he had knowingly surrendered to it. . .

The concept of giving into his sentiment and desire for her no longer terrified him—it actually felt incredibly liberating. He was secure in the knowledge that, as Irene had pointed out, they weren't adversaries. Rather, they were complementing counterparts.

In a way, the surrender itself felt as utterly enthralling and freeing as when he had finally acknowledged and conscientiously given in to his coke addiction as a younger man. He felt the same sense of thrilling release that came with fully permitting himself to indulge in what he wanted, to the extent that he wanted it.

But when he had surrendered to the drugs, he'd only felt liberated because he'd completely given up on the idea of having a productive, fulfilling life, and there had been a masochistic sort of freedom in that. It had happened at his darkest hour and was deliberately self-destructive, borne out of jaded hopelessness.

 _This_ was the diametric opposite. Now he was investing himself in something more fully than he ever had before (including cases, which didn't demand nearly as much of him), and this act, while carnal, nonetheless felt somehow wholesome and affirming. . . 'right.'

As Sherlock looked up into Irene's face, breathing hard from their intense, protracted kisses and almost dizzy with infatuation for her, he dragged his hands up her thighs, then hitched up the skirt of her dress until it bunched bulkily around her hips. Frustrated, he grasped the bottom hem and yanked upwards, only to hear a shredding noise as the rear vent tore.

He hesitated, but she shook her head impatiently, small curls starting to form around her face from the moisture dewing along her hairline. "Never mind it. . ." she panted. "I'd happily _burn_ this dress if I had anything else to wear. . ."

He opened his mouth to tell her that she _did_ have other things (an entire suitcase full, in fact), because obviously it would look suspicious if Erin Sigerson processed through customs without luggage. But then she rolled her weight forward so that her knees found better purchase on the mattress, and he became distracted.

He would still tell her—later. And since he had her implicit permission. . .

He looked down, and with an almost feral twist of his lips, he clutched the two ends of the skirt and jerked his hands apart, ripping the fabric apart up to the small of her back, and then grabbing her upper thighs tightly in his grip.

If she was bothered by the fact that he had just seriously damaged the only item of clothing she knew she possessed, she didn't indicate it. Instead, she stared into his face biting her lower lip, her breath quickening into short bursts. Again he thrilled at the fact that he could now understand this nonverbal language—she had taught him that—and so he knew what she wanted. It was something they both wanted.

He slid one hand to the back of her neck and drew her into a fierce, claiming kiss, then dragged his fingertips down to grasp her dress's zipper. He tugged the tab down her back with one hand while the other buttressed her against him, and then he instructed, "Lift your arms."

She did so at once, and he pulled the fabric up over her head without a moment's hesitation, revealing that she wore no bra beneath the dress. He swallowed the flood of saliva that pooled into his mouth at the sight of her suddenly bared breasts, and immediately leaned forward to take one into his mouth, hollowing his cheeks and rolling his tongue across it. She dug her nails into the ridges of his shoulder-blades and sighed in approval, and he smirked in self-satisfaction. He may have had extremely limited familiarity with physical intimacy, but there were only so many ways in which experience could improve upon pure instinct and his keen sense of observation.

"You know, somehow I don't mind if it's you telling me what to do in bed, as _long_ as I get to repay the favour," she murmured heavily into his ear, and the puffs of breath were hot and moist against his skin, causing him to shudder slightly against her—at the thought of _both_ prospects.

His skimmed the tip of his nose up her chest until they found each other's mouths again, moving far more sloppily and uncoordinatedly together. His mind was blank save for processing the intense immediacy of the moment, and all the sensations, textures, and low breathy noises that came with it. Now that his head _was_ complicit in this venture, he could let go intellectually and just experience sex with his body and—for lack of a better word—soul, and there was something incredibly wanton and sumptuous about that. Reaching such a point had been extraordinarily difficult ( _Understatement_ , he thought briefly), and so he was determined to take advantage of the rewards.

"What do you want me to do next?" she asked provocatively, and Sherlock found the question exhilarating.

"Finish. . .unfastening my shirt," he said, and the words tumbled out in more of a low exhale than a voice.

Smiling with dark, hooded eyes, she ran a fingertip down the depression between his pectoral muscles where the material hung parted open, and then nimbly undid the buttons. As she followed the trail of uncovered skin with her lips, another involuntary shudder passed through him, and his head suddenly dropped backwards as a soft groan choked from his mouth.

Apparently enjoying his small noise of approval, Irene paused in her task to reach up and pull his head forward again, pressing her lips briefly but searingly to his. She broke away before he'd had his fill to swivel to the side and unbutton his cuffs, and she bent to lavish open-mouthed kisses on both pulse points she revealed.

The touch of her lips seemed to infuse a heat into Sherlock's blood that swept through his entire body, setting each artery, vein, and capillary aflame, and making him feel vivid and truly alive. Every cell of his skin and follicle of his hair felt incredibly sensitive and receptive, and it was the type of absolute cerebral awareness he utilised daily, but translated and experienced purely though his physical self—a brand new and incredible revelation.

In that state of hyper-awareness, even the slide of fabric over his shoulders, then off of his arms was phenomenally sensual. And so when she pressed her palm across the fly of his trousers, he jerked with a choked groan and his hand flew to her wrist, where he dug his fingers into her skin.

"What next?" she asked with an uneven but knowing whisper, and he looked up to her face to see her staring down at him with her rosy lips parted and a predatory glint in her eye.

"Trousers," he somehow managed to respond, albeit rather gutturally, and as she leaned forward in immediate acquiescence, he pressed his lips to her tantalizingly close breasts, craving as much reciprocal contact with her as possible.

Suddenly the ship rose on a swell then pitched to one side, and they tumbled backwards onto the surface of the bed so that their bare, fevered torsos pressed together. They both exhaled sharply, first in surprise and then arousal at their new position, and Sherlock forgot about what they were doing before that moment and became lost in a haze of mutually searching lips and pressing tongues.

But then, when Irene reached between their bodies to slide her hand through the unfastened trousers and then under his pants, Sherlock wrenched away with a heavy gasp. Her touch had produced bolts of unbelievable, pure pleasure, and all the delicious tension he felt thrumming throughout his body suddenly focused and magnified at that point.

"Hello-o," she murmured in a singsong but low and husky voice, and when she further tightened her grip on him he instinctively bucked his hips and made an undignified noise.

No longer content with waiting for her to finish stripping him of his clothes, he impatiently arched his back and shoved the material down his legs, then toed off his sock as well, before he collapsed back against the bed, gasping heavily for air.

In contrast to his urgent rush, Irene lifted her knee and slowly rubbed her nude thigh against his, and his eyes fluttered to a close as he savoured the unbelievably erotic feel of her covering him: her sleek softness and general smoothness pressed against the hard planes of his body and coarse hairs along his chest, groin, and legs.

Growling, he reached up to pull her face to his again and he didn't break their connection as he rolled them over so that she now lay pressed beneath him. After several long, luscious moments he leaned back, though only to stare fixedly at the final remaining slip of fabric that separated them.

She gave him a lazy smirk and raised her eyebrows, and he instantly translated his desire into action as he grasped her hips and forcefully pushed her further up the bed, his pulse racing and his breathing growing louder yet around them.

The silk of her surprisingly understated but clearly luxury-brand underwear was dingy and worn but relatively clean—he could tell that along with her dress, she had washed these in the hotel sink just prior to his return the night before. The fabric had already been flimsy, but now it was positively threadbare, and it clung to every curve and hollow between her legs. Swallowing hard, he reached forward and splayed his fingertips across her pelvic bone as he swiped his thumb over the thin material. Immediately the muscles in her thigh tensed and she took a sharp intake of air, and when he looked up to her face he found her staring at him as if in deep suspense. Her eyes were wide and her cheeks were the same vivid pink as her swollen lips. Feeling further emboldened by his ability to captivate _The Woman_ in such a way, he drew his finger down the centre seam of the briefs, tracing the elegant and intricate design of her beneath the silk shield.

He heard her exhale unsteadily and in his peripheral vision he saw her toss her head back onto the pillow as he watched his hand repeat the movement, exerting slightly more pressure in each repetition. In response to Sherlock's touch, Irene rolled her knees farther apart and grasped his forearms so that series of little crescent indented his skin, but after several moments he craved a closer and more immediate caress, and he slid his fingers under the scalloped edge the black underwear. At that direct contact her head jerked up as if a live wire had touched her, and their eyes snapped together in a connection that caused everything else in the room to fade out and dim. His gaze never left hers as he moved his fingers in slow deliberate strokes, and he watched in absorbed fascination as the pulse in her carotid artery noticeably increased, and a deeper flush crept over her chest and cheekbones. Observing the effect he could have on her was incredibly arousing (every muscle in his body was starting to buzz and feel heavy and warm) but after a few moments it became _not_ _enough_ somehow, and he leaned closer to her and braced his weight on one arm while he pulled the designer briefs down to her knees with the other. She kicked them off the rest of the way, and then he leaned down to coax her lips open with his, tangling her dark tresses around his fingers as her tongue echoed that movement within his mouth.

And yet only a short time later he pulled his face away from hers with concerted effort—it still wasn't _enough_ , and he knew what it was that he really wanted. There had been a particularly persistent and vivid image that would not fade from his imagination, and even throughout all the intensely arousing touches and caresses, he had been unable to stop thinking about that one act.

She had arched upward, following his lips with hers, but after a brief parting kiss he pressed her back into the bed by her shoulders, and she looked intrigued and eager.

He smoothed his hands down her legs, his eyes raking over the curve of leg meeting hip, the graceful contour of her inner thigh, and the smooth skin that spanned over her toned musculature. When his fingers skimmed over the inside of her knees he pressed outwards slightly, and with an encouraging smile and sustained eye contact with Sherlock, she dropped her legs apart.

As he had noted the first time he'd ever seen her nude and further observed in the past 24 hours, the juncture between her legs was just as pristinely manicured and chic as the rest of her, although presumably slightly below her usual standards due to her incarceration. Not that it mattered to _him_ ; Sherlock couldn't care less about how she chose to maintain herself. Previously the state of her personal grooming was immaterial because it didn't offer him any insight about her beyond what was already known and obvious. Now it was irrelevant because she would have appeared irresistibly desirable to him no matter what, simply by virtue of the fact that she was _The_ Woman. The only one who had ever evoked the powerful, coupled feelings of sentiment and lust within him—his one exception. She was glorious to him, and so even the simple act of looking at her was incredibly titillating.

Nonetheless, he was feeling greedy and insatiable, and he _still_ wanted _more_.

"May I. . ." he trailed off as he struggled to find the right words, selecting and then discarding various terms that were either too clinical, too crude, or too puerile.

"Yes?" she prompted breathily from somewhere above him.

"I want to. . ." But apparently his openly hungry expression and the singular locus of his attention perfectly conveyed his meaning.

"Oh by _all_ means," she murmured in one long huff of breath, her anticipation tinged with a small trace of amusement.

He swallowed and leaned forward to kiss her left knee, then brushed his nose and lips down the long line of her Sartorius muscle, until he came to the juncture of leg and pelvis. Nuzzling against the impossibly smooth and delicate skin at the crease, his mouth flooded as if he were surveying a feast following the culmination of a particularly lengthy case. And in a sense, he was.

Which reminded him. . .

"The steward was right," Sherlock commented drily against her inner thigh, and though he had spoken only a minute before, his roughened voice sounded as if he hadn't used it for a week.

"Mmm?" she asked distractedly at his apparent non sequitur, and he smirked at the way she sounded utterly preoccupied.

"He mentioned that we would be eating _dinner_ promptly at seven-thirty," he said, gently biting the flesh that covered her abductor muscles for emphasis. "Which is _right_ about now. . ." His lewd implication sent a sort of wild thrill racing through him, and he looked up to catch her gaze. It was so un _like_ him—he even considered casual swearing relatively base—and yet he could not deny that he found the suggestive words tremendously exciting.

Her eyes sparked wickedly as her lips curved into a playful smile. "Mr. Holmes, I'm _scandalised_ ," she said, but her purring tone contradicted the words. He tossed her a smug leer, then without another moment's hesitation, he bent his head towards her. As soon as he made contact her words faded into a sigh and her muscles uniformly tensed, then seemed to relax until she appeared to have practically melted into the duvet.

The experience was immediate, hedonistic, and incredibly erotic. All five senses were fully challenged and engaged, and he might have been overwhelmed if he weren't so utterly engrossed and enthralled.

It was _also_ incredibly arousing, but he channeled all of his own desire into pleasing her, and he found that it was actually extraordinarily stimulating to just be able elicit such sounds and signs of approval from her. Once again the raw, unfiltered feelings and vulnerability she revealed to him felt like rare gifts, and he felt compelled to repay his appreciation by bringing her as much gratification as possible. And though he was the one (evidently) pleasing her, he also understood how a person such as herself could obtain satisfaction from being a dominatrix. . . it felt incredibly empowering to administer and control someone else's pleasure, and through her sighs and movements, he was able to experience it vicariously as well.

As he continued, her hands slid across the tops of his shoulders and her fingertips grazed up the base of his skull before she grasped fistfuls of his hair in her palms, increasing the pressure on his head as he intensified his pressure on her.

She became ever more breathless and vocal, and her subtle vulnerability progressed into palpable desperation. He matched her growing tension with his own ardor, restraining her twisting hips against the mattress and settling more heavily against her.

After a period of time during which Sherlock became completely lost in the taste and texture of her, her legs abruptly clapped closed against either side of his head, and under her smooth skin the thigh muscles rippled and contracted, while her fingernails dug into his scalp. He felt more than heard the current of pleasure work its way through her body and burst out from her mouth in a breathless, choking moan, and he smiled triumphantly against her trembling skin. The actual experience had been even more rewarding— _immeasurably_ more—than the initial image in his mind had suggested.

When her respiration began to return to normal, he pressed a concluding kiss on her inner thigh and reached up to intertwine his fingers with hers, then braced their joined hands against the bed and shifted his weight off of his elbows, feeling exceedingly pleased with himself.

"Who'd have thought you and I could be _ordinary_ in this way?" she asked after she had further recovered her breath, and though her tone seemed relatively light and humourous, there was a serious, pensive undercurrent.

" _This_. . .isn't ordinary," he panted as he moved back up her body, dropping lush open-mouth kisses above her navel, then between her breasts, then above her clavicle and up her throat, almost unbearably intoxicated by the high of what he had just accomplished.

Relatives notwithstanding, he had never met anyone even remotely like him in his existence (besides, while his elder brother had the smarts, yes, he was so infuriatingly different from Sherlock in every other way that it completely subverted any similarities they shared). _Irene_ , on the other hand. . . not only was she his absolute intellectual equal, but the differences between them were _expansive_ , not reductive.

For Sherlock to have _any_ connection with another person was uncommonly rare, and for that bond to then extend to this exhilarating physical compatibility was profound and remarkable. How could she use the word 'ordinary' to apply to them? They were a genus unto themselves.

When he finally reached her mouth and pressed his lips softly to hers, he tried to convey all the power and complexity of the deep warmth that was radiating within him and towards her, and the kiss grew increasingly more urgent and uninhibited as it reflected the growing tide of emotion between them. _Definitely not normal_ , he thought fleetingly.

But then he flashed on the numerous crimes he had witnessed over the course of his consultancy, which had been committed in the name of passion. . . Just like all _those_ ostensibly 'normal' people, the power of his own feelings compelled him to act completely outside of his normal spectrum of behaviour (in his case, by being physically intimate).

And so when they finally broke apart, he rested his forehead against hers, and mused in a husky murmur, "But I suppose that's what all those ordinary people in love think."

They both abruptly froze as the words he had so casually stated resonated between them. Automatically, panic flared up inside Sherlock, and it sparked, _ignited_ —and then sputtered and faded away.

It was replaced by a steady, glowing incandescence, and for some reason he was reminded of the comforting heat of his fireplace back in London. That was where, after all, they had experienced their first real touch, despite his belief at the time that he was simply monitoring her physiological reactions to him.

He'd been lying to himself, Sherlock knew. Even then, despite the formidable fortifications he had constructed against sentiment, he had sensed this potential between them—sensed it, and been utterly daunted by its power.

Clearly, that was no longer the case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To Be Continued. . .
> 
> As always, I love hearing from readers, so if you have a moment, please do let me know what you thought :)


	19. Love and War

With a small mental jerk, Sherlock came out of his own brief and introspective trance with the realisation that Irene hadn't yet responded in any way, and he tilted his head back to peer into her face, seeking out her eyes to gauge her thoughts. It would be incredibly ironic if his words had now unnerved _her_ , and he'd had quite his fill of irony from all that had happened during the mission.

He suspected—based on everything that they had experienced together and all that she seemed to self-emblematically represent—that she could be receptive to his comment, and perhaps even reciprocate in some way. But still, he had to admit that his heart jolted hard in his chest, though not altogether unpleasantly, as he waited for her to answer him.

He observed that she was searching his face closely as well, as if she were (for once) unable to quite understand or digest what she'd heard, and was seeking out either corroboratory or conflicting evidence in his expression. But apparently she found whatever it was that she sought, because after a moment her eyebrows flicked minutely, and then her face softened, divesting her even more of the severe, closed-off dominatrix persona, so that she was almost literally unrecognisable from that version of herself.

Yet despite the fact that it was a side of her that he knew usually remained firmly concealed by her mask, he had also already come to understand that it was just another facet of the tremendously complex woman who was (the late) Irene Adler—no more or less authentic than any of the other elements of her personality that she had presented over the course of their time together. And he was utterly fascinated both with each disparate component, and the sum of all her parts. She repeatedly managed to surprise and impress him, and he had not yet sensed the outer limit of his capacity to be astonished and a bit awed by her.

"Yes. . . I suppose they do," Irene finally said, her eyes sparkling as she continued to watch him, and a slow smile crept onto her lips, then abruptly broadened. In answer to her correspondingly indirect affirmation Sherlock felt his look of watchfulness relax into a similar smile, and another flood of adrenaline swept through him again, sending his heartbeat into an almost painfully hard arrhythmia.

She lifted her hands upwards and slid her fingers into his hair, combing his errant curls away from his forehead and framing his face between her palms. For a long moment they stared at each other silently, although the subtext between them—expressed in the nonverbal cues they now both understood—conveyed everything that they would never actually state aloud to each other.

Then her smile faded and her eyes grew more tenderly sober, and she pulled him down. He willingly dropped his face to hers, and like the kiss they had shared right before he had last spoken, this was more than just a prologue to greater intimacy. It physically reiterated and re-enforced the words that they had spoken, as well as all the unsaid that had passed in their shared gaze, and Sherlock had never before felt so vulnerable and open, while simultaneously pumped with the type of euphoria he had never previously affiliated with anything besides brainwork.

They pulled apart in order to momentarily recover their breaths, and Sherlock unexpectedly found himself chuckling at the situation, although he didn't know why. Nothing was particularly humourous, but nonetheless the sound bubbled up from his chest, and she joined in softly a moment later, though apparently more in somewhat pleased and amused surprise than anything else. The laughter was unguarded and uncynical, and Sherlock didn't know the last time he had heard himself make such a noise. It didn't sound at all like him, but then, this _situation_ wasn't him at all like him—or so he'd thought.

But as he regarded the open, radiant face looking up at him, the desire to laugh was quickly replaced by another, stronger and more demanding craving, and their mirth faded as they contemplated each other with increasing seriousness.

This time as they tangled up together again, Sherlock began to sense within him a building urgency and driving purpose. Whereas before he was content with their embrace and touches for the sake of themselves, he now began to find their level of contact increasingly less satisfying. No matter how much skin his hands spanned and grasped along her hips, waist, or upper arms, and no matter how deeply their mouths continued to explore each other's, or how roughly he caressed her breasts, he craved even greater intensity. And as her touches became ever more unrefined and wanton as well, he knew that she was feeling equally carried away by desire. There was no question as to what they both wanted, and Sherlock was incredibly eager and anticipatory.

With a grunt of frustration he pulled his lips from hers and pressed them roughly beside her cheekbone. " _I want you_ ," he spontaneously growled in such a deep and breathless exhale that it was barely audible, and again he felt an illicit thrill from being so explicitly forthright. His self of even only a few days before might not have recognised the man saying such words, but with The Woman (and _only_ her), it felt natural. Her respiration quickened in response, and he shifted back on his heels, then hooked his elbows behind her knees and drew her closer to him in one rough movement.

From flat on her back she watched him with narrow eyes and glowing cheeks, biting her lower lip and brushing her palms up and down the backs of his upper arms, and with single-minded and unhesitating intent he crawled between her legs to loom above her again. Reaching down, he pressed his hands from her knee up the interiors of her thighs, then clasped onto her innominate bones, digging his fingertips in hard, as if he wanted to leave some sort of slight mark on her.

 _Perhaps I do_ , he thought rather boorishly; something to remind her of him and what they had done, in the days immediately following their upcoming parting. Not that he would need any such physical token, himself. The change wrought within himself was so dramatic and significant that his entire mind palace could be leveled down to its foundation, and yet the sense and emotional memories of this would remain standing amidst the rubble.

"Sherlock. . ." she prompted breathlessly, and his gaze immediately focused and snapped back onto her flushed face.

One hand slid off her hip to brace against the bed beside her waist while he reached the other one down between the two of them, and then he took a deep if slightly shaky breath, before rocking forward on his knees to join their bodies.

Immediately the pleasure surged forward to meet him, and unprepared for the power of the sensations that were still so very new to him, he dropped his weight from his hands to his elbows so that he could press his face into the juncture of her neck and shoulder with a low whimper. He'd come to realise that it was the place on her body to which he was repeatedly drawn back, and the contact served to ground him somewhat.

Then, after using the same breathing technique he used to marshal his thoughts to now direct and focus his body, he turned his head to rest his cheek on her shoulder and press his mouth to the side of her throat, and he tentatively moved his hips again.

In response, she made a breathy noise and tightened one arm around his shoulders as the other lifted to rake fingers through his hair, sifting through his curls with just enough pressure to make his scalp tingle. He had come to very much enjoy that sensation in the time they had spent together—it seemed at once both erotic and tender, somehow—and he murmured a throaty grunt in approval.

He lifted his head to look down at her, her face framed by his bent arms, then noted hoarsely, "You like my hair." The breathing technique was abandoned as he started to pant.

"I like all of you," she answered solemnly, and though she then leavened the comment by tilting her pelvis upward suggestively, her simple words resonated poignantly within him. He believed her, and the consequent thrill of elation and validation that he felt had nothing to do with anything physical.

For his entire life Sherlock had felt like an outsider, set apart by his intellect early as a young child, and then further isolated by the social wariness and personal walls that he had developed as a result of that early alienation.

But as he tangled his fingers up in her increasingly perspiration-dampened hair, and covered her temple, eyelids, cheek, and jaw in urgent and possessive brushes of his lips, he realised that her returned regard and acceptance completely validated and affirmed whom he was as a man, so that he could finally—decisively—dismiss the frankly foolish self-doubt and occasional regret that he couldn't be simpler.

As it turned out, he didn't _have_ to change his inherent identity and become ordinary in order to experience sentiment and lust as ordinary people could. It transpired that he could have it both ways; he'd simply needed to find someone as extraordinary as himself with whom to share it. Someone of his own 'genus,' as he'd thought a few minutes before, and now the concept reiterated in his mind as he looked down into her acutely intelligent, storming blue eyes.

He had experienced the feeling of personal validation with John as well, but as significant and meaningful as that relationship was, and as much as it may have primed him to be more receptive to something like _this_ , Irene touched and thawed places in him that John had never reached, nor ever could. Aside from the critical fact that Sherlock didn't view his friend in a romantic or sexual way, John also just wasn't 'one of them'.

But now that he _had_ met his full match, he was no longer that outsider. Now he could be the one actively partaking in an experience rather than clinically observing it from apart and afar, feeling simultaneously vastly superior, and—he could now admit it—quite lonely.

Their lips surged together again and involuntarily he let out a low groan. Paired with his flood of sentiment for her, the sensations were almost overwhelming, and he channeled his desperation into their escalating kiss, pressing her hard into the bed with the length of his body. She echoed the sound herself and arched upwards while tightening her legs around his waist, and his adrenaline spiked exponentially and ignited a frenzy within him.

Succumbing completely to his baser self he gathered her into his arms almost aggressively and dug his knees into the mattress, then pulled them into an upright seated position so that they pressed together from ankle to chest, with just centimetres between their avid, concentrating faces.

After a brief but intense moment of penetrating eye contact, Irene gave Sherlock another push just above his sternum, and he collapsed backwards onto the bed, their positions reversing.

A spark of triumph animated her flushed face as she leaned forward and began to move and shift with him from above, teeth glinting in the low light as she breathed heavily through curved lips. He knew that she (rightly) took credit for this extreme transformation of Sherlock Holmes from a cold, concise brain with a body incidentally attached to the passionate, unreservedly uninhibited man below her, and she was clearly enjoying the subsequent benefits.

Apparently she read his passing expression of perceptiveness, because with a teasing grin and a quick flick of her eyebrows, she braced her hands on his chest to pin him against the mattress and proceeded to swivel, rise and fall against his thighs in a complex choreography that infused his cheeks with heat and wrenched a series of shuddering groans from out of him.

Looking up into her face, he felt as if his skin couldn't possibly contain the fullness of his passion—for her body and her self—and he felt as though he might burst with the power of _feelings_.

It was fascinating to Sherlock to consider that only twenty-four hours previously, at this time the night before, he had been striding down a dark and crumbling corridor holding a commandeered sword, moving towards the single most critical, dangerous, and challenging manoeuvre of his life, and the culmination of months' work. Irene's life had been in severe jeopardy (and he would shortly be placing his own into even greater danger), and as he'd made his way to that cavernous chamber his heart had pounded and his respiration had quickened from a different sort of physical anticipation.

At the time, he couldn't have fathomed that it was possible to use the instrument of his body in a more satisfying way than to immediately execute all the movements his brain rapidly devised, in the context of a life-or-death situation. _How_ things had changed in a single day.

For one thing, in this context his body knew precisely how to move, without any higher cognitive direction needed—nor necessarily even wanted. Just as Irene had told him later that same night, it could feel _very_ "liberating to suppress all the ever-industrious mental processes and simply. . . exist."

With a small moan, he threw himself into the physical, pulling her down to him and locking his arms tightly around her waist. Irene made a muffled sound of approval into the pillow beside his head, and then turned her face and traced the shell of his ear with the tip of her tongue, before closing her teeth around his earlobe and tugging it in her mouth. For Sherlock it was a revelatory introduction to a previously unknown erogenous zone, and it had combustive results.

Shuddering convulsively, he wound her hair around his fist and drew her up towards him, crashing their mouths together in a graceless scrape of teeth and lips. The connection seemed to complete a circuit between them, and to Sherlock it felt as if currents of electricity were passing through the two points where they were joining with increasingly desperate and inelegant urgency.

Then, with his final shred of acuity and cognitive function, he pushed his other hand down between them to apply a firm, unremitting pressure on her with his thumb, just over the spot where they merged together.

" _The_ _Woman_ ," he pulled back to exhale harshly against her lips, intoning the 'the' almost as if it were actually ' _my', a_ nd with satisfaction, he saw her mouth prop open as she loudly gasped for oxygen in reaction to both his touch and his subtext. Watching her carefully, his expression an almost feral sneer, he quickly adapted, adjusting the force of the touch and focusing on the precise spot that seemed to most provoke her.

After a moment of intense, sustained eye contact (a breathless moment that seemed to stretch on without beginning or end for Sherlock), she severed the link with a breathy whimper, and leaned her weight onto her elbows in order to cradle his head in her arms and press her face into his shoulder. The movement caused her breasts to graze up Sherlock's chest, and while he vaguely registered the sensual feeling and the thundering of her heart against his, they were merely two more elements in an entire symphony of sensations now controlling and exquisitely tormenting his body. The vast majority of his physical focus and the _entirety_ of his mental focus had shifted to the point of incredible friction between their bodies, and so when she ground her pelvis into him, bright white stars burst in his vision, and a deep groan choked from his mouth.

In response, the arms she had wrapped around his head dropped and her hands gripped his shoulders likes vises, and he idly noted that he might bear some physical tokens as evidence of their intimacy, after all. Bizarrely, the thought was incredibly arousing, and he tightened his hold in her hair and increased his staccato tempo.

The feeling of electricity cycling through the circuit of their joined bodies was intensifying: a reaction on one side acted as a catalyst on the other, which reacted in turn and perpetuated the dynamic in an erratic yet steadily-building escalation. And though Sherlock now had some experience with the unfurling sensations and understood what was coming, their familiarity did nothing to mitigate the raw, devastatingly pleasurable power that loomed _immense_ , yet still just out of reach.

Suddenly he felt desperate to see her face again, and re-form the emotional connection that paralleled yet also completed the physical act. Expending significant effort, he gasped almost as if asphyxiating, " _Look. . .at me._ "

With a short, determined huff of breath, she immediately lifted her head to comply, and as he looked up into her smoldering, unguarded eyes he found everything that he had craved to see the moment before. All that he had come to know and feel about her, and all that he understood she felt about him, was re-substantiated in their blazing gazes. . . She was doing precisely the reverse of what Moriarty had threatened: she was burning ( _searing_ ) the heart into him, and contrary to what he might have contended before, somehow he understood that this forged him into a much stronger adversary.

He had been determined to delay his own gratification until they could find release together, but as he became consumed by the intensity of his sentiment, he sensed that he could only resist for so much longer. After all, for him sentiment and lust were too tightly entwined. . .

He brutally bit his lower lip and further dug his fingers into her hair in dual efforts to distract himself from the rising, relentlessly-building energy that was accumulating within him (only sheer, desperate will had kept him from surrendering already) but his resolve was rapidly dissipating. But then she nodded, jerkily but emphatic, her eyes sparking embers as they stared into his, and that seemed to be the sign for which he'd been unconsciously waiting.

Suddenly and unequivocally, the entire world outside of his own body no longer seemed real and practically winked out of existence for him, and though he vaguely felt her mouth on his, rough in the passion of her own need, it barely registered against the unremitting pleasure pounding through him.

Like a supernova, his physical awareness first flared out rapidly, so that it seemed to spread across the entire expanse of his skin and make him hyper-conscious of any and all stimuli, and then contracted so that he could sense no further than that boundary. The cataclysm rocking his body was the only tangible thing in existence, but it was _more_ real, crucial, and imperative than anything he had ever experienced, apart from the few other times he had felt this singularity.

He had no concept of how long it lasted, but it seemed as if the sweet agony pulsed on and on, blossoming until he almost couldn't bear it, then abruptly shattering, and finally releasing him, leaving him shuddering and completely spent on the mattress, still unconscious of anything besides his own chaotic internal physical processes.

It took him still another unknown period of time to surface from his fugue state and take in Irene's tense frame and determined, set face above him. And though he felt like wincing from the over-stimulation, he clenched his teeth against the sensation, resolved both to master this new skill-set, and ensure their mutual satisfaction. Cognitively he knew that the thought wasn't rational, but in his mind it was as if their shared physical gratification would seal and ratify of all the intangible sentiment that existed between them.

He lifted his hand from where it had dropped uselessly to the bed, and resumed his ministrations with even steelier determination, drilling his gaze into hers as if in personal challenge. Then, untangling the other from her hair, he propped it behind him to support himself as he heaved into a sitting position. After a long, lingering stare into her narrowed but slightly-vacant blue eyes, he pressed hard kisses down the column of her throat and over her collarbone, then bent to alternate his efforts on each breast in turn, echoing the intensity of his hand below.

The combination was quite effective (he was an extremely adept learner); in less than a full minute he felt the telltale muscular tensing that he had experienced himself only moments before, along with a variety of other subtle signs he had come to know indicated her imminent release. Lifting his head back up so that their faces were just a hairbreadth apart, his eyes hungrily consumed every nuance and expression that articulated what she was feeling, as she was swept up by the irresistible force herself.

Without the distraction of his own physical needs to divert him now, the sentiment expanded and took over once again, almost more formidable and dizzying than before in the wake of the hormones that had been released by his climax. And so when her weight finally collapsed onto him and they sunk together into the surface of the bed, their respiration heavy and their skin shining with perspiration, he felt more innately content and fulfilled than he'd ever been before.

* * *

She lay sprawled across his chest for several moments, her nose and lips pressed against his shoulder as his hand traced random patterns along her lower back, while their breath slowed and evened and their flesh cooled. And when she finally rolled off of him but kept one arm around his waist and rested her cheek against his shoulder, he found that he didn't mind the continued contact. Far from it, in fact.

After several moments, which had a quality that Sherlock construed as rather stunned and somewhat awed silence, she lifted her cheek to prop her chin on one pectoral muscle, and lightly mapped lines over his skin as if playing connect-the-dots.

"You have freckles on your chest," Irene pointed out consideringly, and he gave a soft grunt of amusement then reached up and caught her hand in his, and held it still against his heart.

"So do you," he answered, still slightly out of breath. With her hand stilled she turned her head and kissed the spot instead, then leaned forward, and their mouths connected and slid over each other's languorously, and lengthily.

After they pulled apart the somehow meaningful silence resumed, though just when Sherlock began to sense the full-body heaviness he now associated with post-coital sleep, Irene commented wryly, "I can just picture the write-up of this whole thing on John Watson's website now: 'Sherlock Holmes and. . . _The Maiden Voyage_ '." She smirked. "Awkward sentence structure and even more awkward euphemisms, and all."

Sherlock opened his eyes again, scrunching his nose in only half-sardonic derision and dismay at the thought of the hypothetical blog entry and her pun, but then couldn't help but add, "He did mention that people want to see me as more human. No doubt this would qualify."

"Mmm, well I always knew you had it in you," she said, propping her chin on the arm she'd rested on his chest. Then she hesitated, chuckled, and amended, "Well, perhaps not at _first_. . ."

He quirked an eyebrow.

"But you've almost convinced me, now," she added, mock thoughtfully.

"'Almost'. . ." he repeated deadpan, playing along.

"Yes, but I think one or two more times might be conclusively persuasive," she finished, throwing him a cheeky look.

He chuckled throatily, running his hand up and down the length of her back, although his laughter faded as he was once again reminded that this time did have an imminent expiration point. In fact, he realised that the wind had picked up outside their cabin and that the cresting and falling of the ship had become more obvious, which indicated that they had entered open sea, and meant that they were only approximately 431.6 nautical miles from the port of Muscat, Oman. If they maintained their current speed of 18 knots, they would arrive at the scheduled time in just under 24 hours, and after that, he might never see The Woman again.

This brief window of time was truly the reprieve from 'real life' that he had deluded himself into thinking it was the night before. Literally, since in every legal sense they both had fictional identities, and presently existed outside the borders of any nation or state. Such an opportunity would most likely never present itself again, so he intended to take full advantage of it, exactly as she had appealed for him to do when they had stood together on the deck below (she arguing with him, he arguing with himself).

She seemed mindful of their increasingly limited time as well, because when she pulled away and stared hard down into his face, her expression looked almost severe again, this time with the intensity of her emotion.

He reached up to trace his index finger down the line of her cheekbone, and brushed the pad off his thumb over the bow of her lower lip. He realised that he was committing her face to memory, since soon that was all that they would be to each other, for an unknown length of time—if not permanently. He wanted to hoard every facial articulation of her fascinating personality in his memory, and so, fighting off the thrall of his exhaustion, his eyes drank in her features thoroughly and voraciously, and committed them to a certain rapidly expanding chamber within his mind palace. He'd always appreciated his eidetic memory, but he couldn't recall ever having been quite _so_ grateful for it as he was now.

She appeared to be doing the same, collecting every nuance she could before their inevitable separation.

Then her brow creased even further, and her hand tightened its hold on him. "When you go back—" she blurted out in an uncharacteristically low and urgent voice, and he raised his eyebrows in question, slightly startled out of his focus.

" _Don't_ underestimate Jim Moriarty," she said in a tone that was half commanding, half beseeching. "It's not over."

He studied her atypically troubled face, then murmured, "I know." He knew that as content and secure as he may feel for the timebeing, he was always and inexorably moving towards the moment of his and Moriary's inevitable, potentially deadly confrontation. Every passing second brought him closer to that war.

"I don't know what he has planned, but he's obsessed with you— _psychotically_ obsessed, Sherlock." Her fingertips pressed harder into the skin of his hand, seeming to tighten their hold around him of their own accord.

"You're concerned," he stated. It was obvious, but rather than scoffing at or dismissing her feelings, as was his wont when most people expressed such concern for him, he felt oddly touched.

"He's capable of absolutely anything," she stated in tacit agreement. "He has the intellect to imagine it and absolutely no conscience to hold him back from carrying it out. He would destroy anything and anyone around you, in order to get to you."

Sherlock went quiet for a moment, and then said gravely, "Yes, I realised that the moment I saw John wrapped in semtex."

"You can't approach him with your usual presumption of superiority. I know you were able to solve his introductory teasers last year, but he _is_ your equal in every way, except for the fact that he will literally do anything to win. There is no line he won't cross, and it's not just your side he'll betray. You saw how casually he sold out his clients—that's nothing to him. He would sacrifice absolutely anything in a heartbeat, even his closest associates, if it meant proving his supremacy and getting what he wants."

"You're saying that his lack of caring gives him an edge," Sherlock said, and though she looked tense, she didn't contradict his words.

 _How ironic_ , Sherlock noted wryly to himself. If he had encountered Moriarty at any time prior to the previous year, he would've argued that such a trait was no obstacle for him, either. And yet he'd recently come to understand that there _were_ people in his life for whom he cared, and for whom he cared deeply, and he wouldn't sacrifice that now-acknowledged part of himself so that he could play by _Moriarty's_ rulebook. Perhaps he could find a way to turn his caring into strength, he considered calculatingly. It certainly _felt_ like strength, right now—how could something that felt so empowering and truthful act as a limitation?

He pursed his lips, tabling that line of thinking for the moment, and turned his gaze back to her. "You spent time with the man," he stated, then asked, "What can I do?"

"Start by understanding how dangerous he is," she said, her eye contact unwavering and determined, and he could only nod solemnly in response.

"I do."

" _Promise that_ ," she pressed, her tone now ringing in what he considered her 'professional' voice. And though he could name and catalog it, that didn't make him any more immune to it, and Sherlock pressed his lips to her shoulder.

"Yes."

Seeming at least temporarily appeased, she tilted her head up, coaxing his mouth open with hers, and the tenderness of the moment was almost heartbreaking in its bittersweetness.

"I _do_ have him to credit for one thing, though," he murmured thoughtfully a moment later, and she pulled back, looking at him in surprised curiosity, her eyes still slightly unfocused.

"He keeps things interesting. . .?" she guessed, her brow creasing.

"Mm, not what I was going to say, but in a matter of speaking, yes," he said, watching his fingers as they traced back and forth over the contoured line of her waist and hip. Then, flicking his gaze up to hers, he elaborated, "If not for him, we wouldn't have crossed paths. I'd say that having to go up against Jim Moriarty is a satisfactory trade for that, on the balance."

Except for a slight tightening of her arm around his waist, it didn't seem as though she would make any type of response. But several moments later, just before he sunk into a heavy and dreamless sleep, he heard her answer softly, "As long as you stay alive. . ."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mark Gatiss: "They [Sherlock and Irene] are clearly, absolutely made for each other. So that's a fascinating thing to play with!"
> 
> I agree, Mark :)


	20. When Preparation Meets Opportunity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did some research on how one may create and sustain memory palaces (or as Sherlock calls his: a 'mind palace'). It's pretty interesting stuff!

When Sherlock awoke the following morning, he was aware of two things almost before he even reached full consciousness. The first was that beyond some minor muscular soreness, he felt extremely refreshed and alert yet very unusually relaxed, and he immediately knew that he had slept hours beyond his typical though irregular allotment.

The second thing he noted at once was that for some reason, his mood was exceptionally, intangibly _good_. Usually waking brought on an immediate sense of directionless boredom and ennui, since getting sleep of any quality was an indication that he was between challenges. And though there were no cases waiting for him in London (as far as he was aware, though he had been somewhat preoccupied recently), the exceptional nature of the mission he had just completed, and the ongoing. . .situation. . .with The Woman were certainly interesting enough to hold his attention for the timebeing.

And so in the moments just after he returned to consciousness he kept his eyes closed, memorising and savouring all the textures, sounds, and smells of the morning. This was almost certainly a one-off, and he wanted to catalog it as thoroughly as possible so that he could recall it, in the ( _unlikely? inevitable?_ ) case that he would miss it—miss her. Eyes still shut, though a small crease appeared between his brows, he spanned his fingers outward and pressed them down into the slightly rough surface of the fitted sheet below him, as the knuckles of his other hand brushed lightly but deliberately across the very smooth skin of the woman at his side.

Finally he cracked his eyes open but remained still, feeling too heavy and warm to adjust his position just yet. There were times when the prospects of the upcoming day were so scant or unpromising that he would just lie amongst his bedclothes in a sort of semi-catatonic state, even too apathetically bored to spend effort on thinking of something to alleviate the unbearable tedium. He never lied in bed just for the enjoyment of it however, and he had never understood the appeal of so-called 'lazy mornings'—until now. Like so many other various things in the past day or two, that previously incomprehensible custom suddenly made slightly more sense to him.

He temporarily delayed the gratification of looking at Irene, and instead spent several prolonged moments taking in the pale watery light that filtered through the small porthole windows and cast the cabin in a soft grey glow, as well as the flecks of dust motes floating around them in the air, illuminated in the weak rays. But after only a few moments he found that he couldn't keep his eyes away from her any longer, and he allowed himself to turn his gaze down towards The Woman and fully observe her sleeping form. She was on her side facing away from him, and the duvet was folded over her hip, showing him her dark, now-tangled hair, the long and supple line of her spine, and the tantalising dip of her waist.

He was aware that the human brain found certain ratios and contours particularly pleasing, and anecdotally he could definitely sense himself reacting to hers now. The attraction was further heightened when he noticed a collection of dark red marks along the side of her throat and at the juncture of neck and shoulder—contusions caused by excessive suction. He smirked to himself. He had ended up leaving his mark, after all.

Automatically, he lifted the hand that had been grazing against where her hip pressed into the mattress, with the intention of settling it onto her waist, and hopefully waking her. He estimated that they had been asleep for over seven hours, and since they were due to arrive at the port of Muscat, Oman that night, he didn't want to expend any more of their severely limited time together on something so dull—something they could defer until after they were separated.

But then she stirred, making a small contented murmuring sound in her sleep, and he stilled his hand an inch above her, ambivalent. It occurred to him that he liked this, as well—just this. It took a great level of trust and vulnerability to simply sleep beside someone else, and though the past several days had contained a number of firsts, this was no less significant or unlikely than perhaps any of the more dramatic events.

Besides, having the chance to observe her in such a way was unprecedented, novel and quite appealing. In fact, he felt quite certain (even though it was an imprecise, unsubstantiated certainty) that being observed like this was equally rare for her, as well, and that perhaps he wasn't the only one for whom the more understated intimacy of simply sleeping besides someone was a new experience.

So, rather than wake her as he had originally intended, he pushed himself slowly and carefully into a sitting position against the pillow, to better view her face from over her shoulder.

He couldn't resist one touch though: impulsively he reached out to brush back the hair that was draped across her cheekbones and obscuring her features, but other than her lips slightly pressing together and the subtle flutter of her eyelashes, she didn't react.

With a look of intense concentration, his eyes meticulously scanned her face, left to right, from her hairline down to the rounded edge of her chin. As he processed her smooth, tranquil expression and prepared to move the incoming data into its permanent mental storage location, he couldn't help but compare it to the untamed and passion-driven appearance he had memorised the previous night. He was nothing if not thorough in his collection of data, and that ethic was especially critical now. His memories of her were to be of the highest and most comprehensive quality possible.

_He reentered his mind palace, which had originally begun as a reproduction of the attic of his childhood home in Sussex, then had grown into the entire manse, and was now significantly grander than even that, with extensive additions and entire other wings. He quickly made his way along the route towards where he had carved out her room, in the basement next to the wine cellar (A very valuable room itself; the bottles were organized by year as if by their vintage, but instead each bottle represented a key scientific discovery of his [the labels' images specified which, since he had any given number per year])._

_He pushed open a door marked with the universal 'Women' symbol to reveal a spacious room with large and gracious round bay windows, through which bright midday sun was flooding—her Belgravia sitting room. (Though logic absolutely ruled his mind palace, it was its own internal brand of logic, and not necessarily bound by rules of nature. And so, even though The Woman's room was technically underground, it would always be saturated with as much light as when he had physically visited the place.) He pictured himself striding across the wide-beam wooden floors and pastel-coloured silk carpet towards an intricately carved black marble fireplace, where he came to a stop._

_In the intervening time since first meeting her the year before, he had placed a number of items in this chamber. Prior to Karachi, the room had already held a riding crop, camera phone, syringe, and a tube of lipstick, each representing different encounters and nuances he had deemed worthy of committing to permanent memory (which was_ every _encounter and nuance, as it turned out). More recently, he had hung the Modigliani painting_ A Reclining Nude on a White Pillow _on the wall above the mantel (modified only slightly so that the woman [_ The _Woman] was wearing marquise-cut diamond earrings), which served as a token of how she had looked the previous pre-dawn morning, emotionally vulnerable yet physically alluring. Below the painting—almost in contrast to it—he had added a gun rack holding an AK-47, and the plaque affixed to the rack was transcribed with particularly memorable quotes from her bluff to Jarwar. Though the memory held certain unpleasant emotional connotations, it was in many ways the central item in his collection, the crown jewel. It was a reminder that she had saved both their lives on instinct and intellect alone, and it served to illustrate how utterly remarkable she was—how brave, and deviously ingenious, and skilled. And it proved that they were true equals._

 _In_ this _visit to her room he mentally added a ten-inch educational model of an exploding supergiant star to the mantel, which represented the passion of the previous night, and then he looked outside and visualised the sun in the sky. The sun: much less dramatic and much more stable than a supernova, and yet still glowing white-hot and pulsing with energy, and responsible for illuminating everything else in the room. The sun was the_ present _moment: the intimacy, the trust, the sentiment. And once again, contrary to the rules of nature, he did not need to avert his eyes away from its brilliance here in his mind palace._

_He stayed for a moment in that place, staring through the windows up at the sun and basking in the both real and metaphorical warmth. Then finally, satisfied, he stepped back to mentally take stock of the entire room, and etch it permanently into his memory._

Even after he had returned to awareness, he continued to watch her in silence, and over the next half hour he noted every change in her breathing pattern, each case of rapid movement beneath her eyelids, and the occasional slight pursing of her lips. All of it was compelling to him somehow, and though their limited time was continuing to pass and the light in the room became brighter and warmer, he didn't reach a point of boredom.

It was only a harsh and uncomfortable cramping sensation in his stomach that finally diverted his focus and fully returned him to the mundanely physical domain, and that was only after he ignored it for over twelve minutes. But with his mission to extract Irene and deceive his brother now (mostly) concluded, he could allow himself to indulge his body a bit—in more than just the way than he already had. And he actually _did_ feel quite hungry; his rate of food consumption after a case tended to increase by approximately 430% compared with what he ate while working as it was, and on top of that he had continued to engage in a much higher level of cardiovascular exercise than usual.

Still he hesitated, not entirely willing to succumbs to the demands of his body (with the exception of one thing) and lose the strange, somewhat ethereal magic of the moment. His brow creasing, he ran through the possibilities: _Room service? Not an included amenity. Indefinitely ignore the sensation? Possible for me, but likely not for her. Precedence states that she'll seek breakfast when she wakes, particularly since she hasn't (we haven't) consumed a meal consisting of the requisite calories for almost 24 hours. If she insists on going when she awakes, we'll spend a greater amount of time out of the room and in the company of others (_ don't want to share _). Best to retrieve food and bring it back before she wakes—the most expedient option in terms of time and limited exogenous interaction_.

Watching her face carefully to ensure she remained asleep, he slipped out of the bed and made his way towards the bathroom, repeatedly bending at the waist to retrieve the clothing that had been scattered about the room. A very faint side-smirk appeared on his face as he recollected how each item had been cast off, piece by piece, although it faded into a look of annoyance when he buttoned up his shirt and then fastened his trousers. After the freedom and liberty of extended nudity his attire felt imposing, restrictive, and uncomfortable, and he sarcastically imagined the various reactions of their fellow passengers and the crew, if he showed up to the breakfast buffet in just a sheet. His smirk widened into a grin as he mused that that would be elegantly symmetrical in a way. Irene would certainly appreciate it: the manner in which she had first glimpsed him on the morning they had met, and then again this morning—potentially their last. . . Dressed in a sheet both times although for very different reasons on each occasion, which were reflective of their evolved relationship. But as the thought that it was their last morning sunk in, his grin froze and then withered away, and after one last darting look at her still form, he turned and left the cabin.

* * *

When he returned the bed was empty, and though she was momentarily out of view he knew that she hadn't left their suite, and the scene was strongly reminiscent of the moment they had first seen each other again after her rescue. The effect was intensified when she stepped out of bathroom and smiled at him somewhat beguilingly, although this time she wasn't wearing his dressing gown. In fact, she wasn't wearing anything at all.

He swallowed hard, but unlike the previous morning, his reaction was not to flee, but to pounce.

She was regarding him with a similarly ravenous expression, and he knew without question that it had nothing to do with the containers of food and coffee he held. For him (and it seemed for her as well), a much different type of hunger made them instantly extraneous, and it was thrilling to him.

For a moment they stared at each other through slightly narrowed eyes, before she squared her shoulders and drew up to her full height which, while almost ten inches less than his own, seemed formidable nonetheless.

And then she spoke, and it was in that confident declarative tone again. "Put those down," she said, but then closed the distance between them and took them out of his hands herself, and set them to the side, then shoved him hard back on the bed.

For a brief moment he was slightly startled, before her words from the night before about alternating who took control echoed back to him, and he toed off his shoes and swung his legs up. Then he settled back against the pillows with his darkened eyes heavily lidded, and his mouth slightly parted, his breath becoming ragged in anticipation.

She straddled his lap, looming over him magnificently, her hair streaming around her shoulders and her face radiating the same surety and emotion he knew she could see on his. In all that existed within the massive expanse of his mind palace, there could not be a more breathtaking or alluring sight than the reality of the woman before him—not to him.

Although soon all he would have were those mere tokens, and as eager as he was to return to London to resume work, and credit himself for successfully completing such a large-scale mission, he wasn't looking forward to the sudden deprivation of both sex and the object of his sentiment.

His thoughts must have coloured his expression, because before he could consider the matter in any greater depth, she let go of one of his hands to brush fingertips over his lips.

"Shhh," she hushed with a faintly reproving look. "I don't want to think about that yet, just stay in this moment."

With effort, he answered, "I didn't say anything. . ." His voice sounded like he had dredged it up from deep within him; it was hoarse and baritone.

"But I could hear you _thinking_ it," she said, and he couldn't help but expel a softly huffed chuckle at that, both because she was right, and because he could remember all the times he'd asserted the same thing to others.

She looked momentarily satisfied that she had managed a small smile from him, but then her gaze turned absolutely determined again, and she pushed her fingers through his hair and down the sides of his neck, to rest on his clavicle.

"We still have an entire day together," she pointed out, her tone full of seductive promise. "Nothing scheduled, or planned or plotted. . . What a novel concept."

But rather than further distracting and calming him, she had incited the opposite reaction. . . Suddenly, for a reason not immediately apparent to Sherlock, the last word she spoke pierced through his intoxicated haze like the laser-sight of a rifle, and he stiffened and grasped her wrists tightly in his grip, pulling her hands away from where they were toying with the collar of his shirt.

His eyes turned to stare widely up at her, his mind still struggling to comprehend his sense of dread prompted by that resonating word, and after another (inexcusable) 2.3 seconds, the realisation hit him with the force of two smashing protons. _Concept. . .conception_. He blanched and felt his lust and contentedness abruptly sap from his body and his precise, analysing mindset snap back, like the proverbial splash of cold water.

"You don't have intercourse with men," he stated abruptly and stiffly, and she paused, and looked down at him in confusion, disconcerted by such an abrupt shift in tone and his apparent non-sequitur.

"And you've been in custody for three weeks," he continued, and he felt the icy chill of panic sink in his stomach, not at all dissimilar to how he had felt when he thought she was betraying him, and he swallowed convulsively.

"Sherlock—" she started, looking as if comprehension was dawning.

" _Contraceptives_ ," he cut in with a hiss, furious with himself for not having realised how irresponsible they had been, although they _had_ had other things on their minds. Still, it was no excuse. "You don't have a reason to be on anything. And even if you did take oral or injected birth control for _health_ purposes, their efficacy would have worn off while you were imprisoned. Meaning we've been having unprotected sex."

Irene nodded pensively as if considering his words, but then she rubbed her palms down, then up the fabric covering his pectoral muscles and up to his shoulders, then leaned in to kiss him. Glaring, he pulled his head back and pursed his lips.

"Irene. . ." he said warningly, but she leaned forward further and pressed a quick peck on his lips.

As soon as she pulled back, he demanded, "When was your most recent menstrual cycle concluded?" turning bracingly to the cold comfort of science in response to the harsh reality of the biological side of sexual intercourse. "If it was any time earlier than the evening you came back to my hotel there's a chance of conception, and even that is cutting it much too close, if you ovulate early."

She regarded him with a level gaze. "Do you think I'd leave such a thing to chance?" she asked. "As undeniably brilliant and gorgeous as a genetic combination of the two of us would be, it just wouldn't be fair to the poor thing to have _us_ as parents. . ." Her mouth pressed into a line in barely-suppressed humour, but he turned his head away from her and glowered, not willing to jest about such a thing.

Instead his heart continued to pound in panic, though he tried to make sense of what she had meant by her presumably rhetorical question. He'd already listed the reasons why pharmaceutical contraceptives weren't viable in this case, and it wasn't as if they'd used condoms; he could rule out _that_ method of birth control absolutely. Nor would she have been able to obtain levonorgestrel or its previous-generation equivalent at any time since they'd had intercourse; Sherlock didn't even know if such a drug were _available_ in Pakistan, for that matter.

"Do you know why I came to find you?" she asked evenly, interrupting his frenetic thoughts, and he looked at her warily from the corner of his eyes, unsure what her question had to do with this immediate and extremely critical concern.

Still, he turned his head back towards her and slowly answered, "You wanted to know why I had come to Karachi. . ."

She tilted her head, considering. "Mm, more like I wanted you to _admit_ why you'd come to Karachi. And I also wanted the chance to. . .thank you." One brow lifted, accompanied by a characteristic twinkle in her eye, and this time he perfectly comprehended her meaning when she was being 'delicate'.

"I knew that if you did come, it was because you had been actively tracing my whereabouts."

His brow furrowed. " _Yes_ , but I fail to see—"

"And to go to such effort would've taken significant investment of time and energy, which you wouldn't spare on me unless you felt as I suspected that you did."

They had already discussed all of this, though: he understood that she had planned for and orchestrated her own rescue by covertly directing him, on the basis of her clearer understanding of his sentiment than he'd had himself. It had been a long-term game and an incredibly risky gamble, but in many ways she had won.

But what did that have to do with the fact that they had been so irresponsible when consummating that mutual regard and sentiment? His mind leapt into high gear, but he was still somewhat subpar at understanding the inner machinations of a personal sexual relationship.

"Put it together, Sherlock. . ." she encouraged, her eyes expectant.

Then suddenly he understood what she was trying to say, and with widened eyes he tilted his head back to appraise her incredulously.

"You knew that one highly probable product of your long-term plan was that we would have sex, because my appearance in and of itself would confirm that I returned your sentiments, and so physical intimacy would then logically follow. As I said before, 'You did expect it.' But since the one factor you couldn't anticipate was _where_ we would find each other, and under what circumstances, you decided to be prepared for what you perceived as—correctly, as it turns out—almost an inevitability."

"I _was_ a girl scout, after all," she interjected as an aside, smiling privately to herself, apparently knowing that the American reference wouldn't make sense to him, and so she elaborated: "'Be prepared.'"

"So you had an IUD inserted," he continued, ignoring her, then added for his own edification: "Intrauterine device."

"Effective for years," she added, by way of confirmation. "After all, while it's true that I don't have sex with ' _men',_ I was planning on being with you. So you see, I rather did ' _have a reason to be on'_ something."

He just stared at her, and the flood of profound relief mixed with utter amazement—again.

All he could manage was, "You actually planned it out down to that detail. You were really that certain of. . .me. That certain that my words to you in front of Mycroft masked how I actually felt. . ."

"I was. I staked my life on it, didn't I?" she said somewhat breezily, though Sherlock could detect the very serious undertone in her words.

He fell silent, considering that fact. He wasn't sure if anyone else had ever placed such intense and high-stakes _faith_ in him before, and it invoked mixed feelings of heady power and anxiety. There was Moriarty, yes, but he had placed _others'_ lives on the line, not his own, and the challenges had been constructed for the sole purpose of the man's personal entertainment and diversion.

To his shock, he realised that his perspective on certain matters had changed since he had first encountered Moriarty and his games.

During that case he had asked John if caring for Moriarty's victims would help to save those people's lives, and when John had answered in the negative, he had scathingly remarked that he would make sure not to make that mistake. And yet it was _precisely_ his caring that had saved Irene, and he felt nauseated at what would have happened if not for his sentiment.

"Besides, if I _had_ been wrong, it's not as if getting the implant would've adversely affected me in any way. . ." she continued. "Sex or death. Those were basically the two potential outcomes." She laughed, although there was a harsh edge to her tone, then added, "I suppose getting the IUD was my personal vote of confidence that it would be the former—somewhat like the girl who shaves her legs before seeing the person she fancies, only. . . _our_ version of that scenario."

He was barely listening, still distracted by imagining the alternative outcome, and when she stopped speaking he drew her down to him and kissed her fiercely, and she responded with particular passion and fervency herself.

"You weren't wrong," he said, stating the obvious but for some reason needing to affirm it aloud to her.

"Thank God," she said with a weak but wry laugh. "Because I'd choose sex over death ten out of ten times."

Sherlock answered with a tight smile of his own, then looked away and said a bit stiltedly, "At this juncture I believe it's also customary that I inform you of my health. . ." He paused, deliberating, and then made up his mind and continued, "I. . .admit that in the past I've injected a solution of cocaine, as well as tried heroin, but I never shared any needles. Even - even at the worst of it. Anyway. I'm healthy. I don't have any type of disease—communicable or otherwise."

He glanced back at her to check her reaction, and though she was watching him closely and nodding thoughtfully, she didn't seem particularly surprised or fazed by his confession. In return, _he_ wasn't particularly surprised that she had somehow already uncovered this less-than-commendable detail from his past. Perhaps she'd even had it in mind while she was accusing him of hypocrisy only the night before, and if so, he was grateful that she hadn't resorted to dredging it up as additional leverage against him. It was further evidence that she seemed to accept him in his entirety, just as he had finally come to unconditionally accept her inclusive of her flaws.

For a moment he briefly allowed himself to feel the poignancy of the moment, and smiling in immediate comprehension, she threaded their fingers together again, then braced her arms to lean over him.

"Now," she started, in a tone that brokered no room for dissent, "be quiet so that we get back to where we were."

With a velocity that might have been almost embarrassing if he were still feeling at all self-conscious, the lust re-engulfed him with full force, simply from the tone of her voice, and his brief detour into panic was forgotten and abandoned at once. If anything, his desire was magnified by the fact that she was so exceptionally perceptive, clever, and accepting of him.

"And where was that?" he prompted, the timbre of his voice rich and deep.

She smiled knowingly, clearly understanding that he wasn't asking out of actual curiosity but in suggestiveness, and she pushed him back down against the mattress again.

* * *

An hour later the breakfast had been eaten, the coffee finished, and Sherlock was starting to become restless again (his refractory period had definitely ended and he felt eager to repeat everything that he'd experienced sexually thus far) when Irene commented idly against his shoulder, "It's rather a good thing you brought breakfast since I'm not fit to be seen in that dress. . ."

"Modest, now?" Sherlock retorted, momentarily roused from his impure thoughts, and he saw her smirk in response. "Anyway, you _do_ have other things—an entire suitcase. We can't have Erin Sigerson passing through customs without any belongings," he drawled.

She looked up at him with two raised brows, and Sherlock briefly savoured the rare feeling of being able to surprise her in some way. "In my size?" she asked, actually looking hopeful. He supposed that if he had been forced to wear one garment for weeks on end he'd feel quite the same.

"Why would I purchase clothes that didn't fit you?" he said, although his words were softened by a faint smile. For a fraction of a second he analysed _why_ he might be smiling, and quickly realised that he was pleased that something he had done had made her happy. Odd. He had done it for a practical reason, but this outcome was far more satisfying, somehow. His actions had never been driven by the motivation of simply making someone happy, but he was finding it strangely rewarding. Surely the same results would only occur if he duplicated the conditions with someone else about whom he cared (eg John), but it was an interesting possibility, nonetheless. . . His brow furrowed, but when he noticed her looking at him expectantly, he added, "Although they are based on your former measurements so they're likely to be a bit large, now."

Then, with the most minimal effort possible to convey his point, he waved a hand in the direction of a small compact suitcase in the corner of the room, and she immediately slid out of bed, lifted the case to the writing desk under the windows, and hastily unzipped it.

"Who could have guessed that knowledge of my measurements would prove useful again one day. . ." she murmured, then looking at the labels, she read, "Reiss."

He lifted an eyebrow, thinking of her ruined Alexander McQueen dress lying in a heap on the floor and the £600 heels abandoned in the sitting room. "Problem?"

"Not at all," she smiled, then added jokingly, "If the high street is good enough for Kate. . ."

"Your assistant," he said, immediately recalling the name.

"Middleton," she corrected at once with a mischievous expression, and Sherlock idly wondered for the first time since hearing about the set of scandalous photos who the "young female person" had been.

"I just purchased their latest line," he explained. "It seemed the most expedient approach."

"Sherlock Holmes actually stepping into a woman's clothing shop and buying out an entire line. . . If I weren't already certain of your interest, this would definitely convince me. I only wish I could've seen it myself," she said, tossing a teasing smile his direction.

He smirked, and for once he didn't correct someone when they were operating under a misapprehension about him. He'd actually had one of the more polished members of his homework network perform the errand, because how would it look if Mycroft or one of his lackeys saw him on CCTV? But he didn't want to spoil the mental image she was clearly enjoying, and so he remained uncharacteristically silent as she continued to root through the contents of the new suitcase.

As well as a package of blended cotton M&S underwear, she pulled out several sets of lacy brief and bra combinations, which she held up with a genuinely stunned but amused expression. "And Rigby & Peller? My, _my_ , Sherlock."

Her knowing look made him slightly defensive. "It's just a token of your old life to see you through to your new one."

"Lingerie as solace?" she laughed slightly condescendingly, then _tsk_ ed. "It didn't occur to you what was _really_ going on? You were such a poor, repressed thing, weren't you?" She looked flirtatiously over her shoulder and added, "I'm so glad that I've been able to divest you of that."

He chuckled despite himself, realising in retrospect that she was absolutely correct regarding his motivations. The justification/rationale he had used didn't stand up to the slightest scrutiny, and that fact that it had been the one clothing-related errand he had actually performed himself was equally damning.

"Yes. . . As am I. . ." he confessed.

"Good, because you're far too sexy to live like a monk," she said. "It would be _such_ a waste."

He rolled his eyes, but also felt himself colour slightly at her flattery.

"Shall I model them for you?" she asked, sidling over to stand just above him, then looking into his eyes enticingly and holding them up to herself. He reached out to curl one hand around her thigh, stroking the bare skin there, and her smile widened in response to his unintentional, nonverbal assent.

Maintaining eye contact, she stepped into the lace and silk briefs. Then she reached for the bra and drew the loose ends of the band together just under her breasts, and Sherlock watched in intent fascination as she clasped them together, then rotated the material and slid her arms through the wispy straps, one at a time. It wasn't just the novelty of watching a woman dress in undergarments that captured his attention, he was _personally_ invested in how it functioned. He hadn't examined them after his purchase (that probably would've transgressed into too dangerous a territory, then), and he hadn't needed to unfasten her bra in any of the four times they'd been intimate so far. But when he observed that it was a hook and eye closure, he smiled a hard, pleased smile. _A pinch to disrupt the tension of the band, and a snapping motion of my thumb and index finger to release the hooks._ Simple.

"A perfect fit," she declared, then crooked one eyebrow at him, and added, "You _really_ did know where to look. And not only that—you remembered."

Sherlock didn't answer; he had no defense to offer, nor was he feeling particularly eloquent in the moment. Instead, as she turned one way and then another under the guise of showing him the fit (although a teasing glint in her eye revealed her true agenda), he mused at the paradox that although she had just covered herself to a degree, she wasn't necessarily any more modest. Something about the way the fabric highlighted and drew attention to certain areas of her anatomy seemed to incite dizzying need in him. Or perhaps he was having such a reaction because by putting something on, there was something he could rip off of her.

He flicked his memory back to the afternoon when he had stepped into that shop on Conduit Street, and recalled how he'd been so ( _too_ ) determined that the reason for his presence was vastly superior to those of all the other male customers; he was there in the course of a mission of the utmost, critical importance—not out of some banal, prurient interest.

 _Idiot_ , he thought to himself, though with some wry amusement. He was so deft at discerning when others were lying to him—how could he have not detected it when he had been lying so blatantly himself?

The answer was immediately apparent: he hadn't been ready to face the truth of his sentiment and sexual attraction then (as real and prevalent as it might have been).

But he certainly was now.

And as she moved across the sheets towards him, all the images of what he wanted to try again displayed in vivid, exhilarating focus in his mind, and he tracked her approach with dark, watchful eyes. She had only been away from him for six minutes at most, and yet the touch of her skin on his almost felt like a relief (no, he was certainly not anticipating the readjustment period in London), and he enfolded her in his arms, pulling her closer to him.

But when she didn't immediately melt against him, he looked down and caught her expression, which was sharp and inquisitive. She was on the verge of asking a specific question, and he let out the breath he'd been unconsciously holding. She evidently had something other than sex on her mind.

"Speaking of my old life—and my new one. . ." she started pointedly, as he'd anticipated, "You think this will work." Her question was posed in the form of a statement, and he knew that she was referring to the rest of Sherlock's plot and her future security. She slid off of him and onto her side, and cocked her head up on her elbow, watching him expectantly.

"Obviously," he said automatically and somewhat impatiently, but then he glanced at her again. His usual curt response wouldn't do; he owed her his elaboration, and she deserved to be privy to all information that he had.

And yes, although he _had_ done his best and he was legitimately optimistic about the outcome, there was always a chance that Mycroft would detect some minute error that Sherlock hadn't even considered. If his and Irene's roles were reversed, he'd want to know the potential risks in such an eventuality.

"Mazari is familiar with the LeT's usual method of propaganda video release," he explained, "and will ensure that your execution tape is uploaded online through the proper internet channels."

She nodded, but then a crease appeared between her brows and she challenged, "But in the event that the LeT deny responsibility. . . Won't that make Mycroft even more suspicious?"

"Oh _no,_ they won't contradict that," Sherlock said confidently. "Why should they admit that someone managed to infiltrate them and allow you to escape, when they can simply take the credit for what they intended to do in the first place? They'll just assume—not without merit—that someone else wanted you dead even more than they did."

Irene hesitated, and he could see her scrutinising his words from various angles. It was fascinating to watch, almost as if he were looking in the mirror during his own periods of silent analysis. Finally she said: "But if Mycroft comes in person to investigate. . ."

"I'm _counting_ on that," he replied fervently, and with some relish. "His contact will be Caldwell, who'll take -highly unprofessional - pleasure from deceiving my brother and refer him to Captain Mazari. Who will then confirm everything on the video is consistent and genuine: the LeT did indeed execute Irene Adler, and that he was the cameraman when they burned the body. He'll say he _tried_ to save her ahead of time, but that he was unsuccessful and that he wasn't actually present at the execution itself. I've coached him on everything I want him to include, down to the finest details of his rescue attempts, and he's familiar enough with the organisation to provide supplemental information for the required air of authenticity."

"You've thought of everything," she said, her tone flatteringly marveling, and in contrast to his previous embarrassment and deflection when she'd noted his output of effort, Sherlock felt himself basking her in her words. "You invested an unprecedented amount of effort and brainpower, and I'm sure expense, not to mentioned you risked your life. . ." she continued, now sounding strangely subdued, as if overwhelmed with barely-suppressed emotion. And though she didn't say it, Sherlock still heard the unspoken ' _for me_ ' at the end of her sentence.

"I've already told you, I don't do things halfway," he said, and though his tone might have sounded arrogant to most, it was more in pleased reaction to her praise, and her answering smile told him that she understood that. Of course she did.

"Mm, yes, I've noticed that. . ." she answered with a suddenly much different yet familiar voice, and with almost absurd predictability, he felt himself responding with an abrupt uptick in BPM, and simultaneously they leaned in towards each other, as he reached one arm around her back and towards the clasp of her bra.

Sherlock's last cohesive thought before he descended into physical bliss was that as abrupt a transition as their emotional and sexual intimacy had initially seemed to him, it was exceedingly evident that both of them had spent months preparing for it in their own ways. Nor had all of his preparation been solely technical or strategic, and therefore only _indirectly_ indicative of his sentiment ( _lingerie,_ for God's sake; it was almost embarrassing now to realise how deluded he had been). And though, yes, she had been more cognitively aware of the precise nature of their dynamic, he had still taken every ongoing step towards this, towards them.

He had never wavered in moving forward, though that begged the question: what would he do when all of this was in the past?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is from one of my favorite quotes by Seneca: "Luck is when preparation meets opportunity." Although of course in this context you can replace 'Luck' with 'Love/lust.'


	21. The End of the World

As the sun dipped below the horizon of the sea and the sky outside the porthole windows grew traitorously darker, the man and woman inside 'The Purser's Cabin' were simply lying on their backs next to one another, their sides pressing together from hip to shoulder, with the man's hand curled around the woman's wrist between them.

Sherlock was composing a new, dolce adagio arrangement in his mind, and as he fitted the notes together he unconsciously pressed his fingertips into the skin of Irene's inner forearm as if he were fingering the corresponding strings on his violin. He vaguely registered that she had her head tilted towards him and was silent as if mesmerised, presumably since he occasionally started humming fragments of the melody under his breath in a rumbling baritone. Then suddenly without segue or any forethought, he paused mid-phrase and turned his head to her.

"Dinner?"

His very spontaneous, impulsive question surprised even himself, and he was instantly tempted to act as though he had been proposing the figurative rather than literal meaning of the word, out of reluctance to share either her or their very limited time with the ship's other passengers. And yet, the idea seemed appropriate and fitting somehow, so he let the suggestion hang in the air between them, unmodified.

At once her eyes had widened in surprise and then checked his appraisingly, and when she saw that he was serious she smiled with appreciation, although a shadow soon crossed over her features. Neither of them actually acknowledged it, but he knew that they were both thinking about how for them, in a way this _was_ the last night of the world. It was perhaps unsurprising, then, that 'dinner' seemed so apt. . .

They dressed in silence, Sherlock chafing again at his constricting garments and envious of Irene's relative comfort in her pale grey shift dress, and he felt uncharacteristically edgy. The idea of leaving the privacy of their room, as well as shifting from their established dynamic filled him with apprehension. He felt out of his depth and unprepared, even though they would be necessarily going out as Dr. and Mrs. Sigerson and he could ostensibly throw himself into the other role.

It was ironic, for more reasons than he had confronted a cohort of violent fundamentalists for Irene without pause or a second thought: they had also surmounted romantic hurdles much more daunting and significant than simply having dinner. And yet the word itself held loaded implications between them, and he felt his heart-rate increase slightly for a reason he couldn't quite diagnose.

He tugged on his cuffs as he tried to focus on getting into character to distract from his absurd and quite unwelcome nerves, and when he did so, he was suddenly reminded of something else he'd arranged to have purchased prior to the trip to Pakistan.

He hesitated, but only momentarily, before he spun decisively on his heel and doubled back to his suitcase and dug out a small black box.

Things had been far too tense between them when they were last in public to give her the prop, but since they had a charade to maintain, it was important that they get all the details. Because even the finest details were important—usually critical, in fact—and if he did slip up it would be with some minutiae that he overlooked but that his brother's practically omniscient eye spotted.

She was almost at the door when he called her, clearly enunciating, " _Erin_."

She turned at once, her brows lifting automatically at the use of her pseudonym while they were still in private, and though he was mildly amused at the response he was able to evoke, he was more focused on the items he pulled from the box.

"Ring," he said simply, though slightly tersely, as he lifted up a white gold band, holding its mate tightly in his own palm.

"Yes, of course," she answered briskly and business-like, understanding at once and taking the item from him. Without any hesitation or fanfare she shoved it onto the third finger of her left hand, but he noticed that her movements were jerkier than usual, and that she avoided eye contact.

He registered her mannerisms, but quickly curtailed a train of thought that burgeoned out of the observation, and they wordlessly slipped from their suite to make their way towards Staircase D. This time they headed up the steps towards the top deck, and Sherlock mused that once again the events of only twenty-four hours previous (when he had fled down to the cargo level) seemed like a lifetime ago. The concept was irrational, but in fact each day since they'd reunited had felt like it had been measured in time according to how much he had learned, grown, and adapted, rather than by standard seconds, minutes, or hours.

When they arrived at the ship's mess hall several minutes later, Sherlock quickly scanned the entire room, and his lip curled with distaste. True, the passengers weren't the type of tedious clientele that one would encounter on a pleasure cruiseliner, but they weren't _much_ of an improvement, and he didn't think that any company would be welcome right now. He was starting to deeply regret his suggestion, but he selected an empty table next to an older Irish couple, nonetheless. They were obviously on a trip to celebrate the woman's retirement from. . . education administration, and they seemed like the least offensive choices in a collection of unappealing options. Still, he continued to feel uneasy and vaguely agitated.

Irene followed Sherlock to the simple, unset wooden table in the corner, and after they sat in silence for a slightly tense moment, she stretched out her arm to press two fingertips against his hand. There was a softness and vulnerability to her face as she gave him a small smile that nearly cracked his deadpan, composed facade, and he could detect a glimmer of something that looked like sadness in her eyes as well.

He thought he understood it, and that perhaps its source accounted for why he felt so edgy himself. Now that they _were_ finally having (literal) dinner together, it felt like a farewell, an act of closure. This would no longer be something unfulfilled or unfinished between the two of them that they could privately view as cause for reunion in the future, and he realised that while dinner did seem appropriate because it was the 'end of the world' (their shared world, at least), the inverse was equally true. The act itself was the closing of a door—the full stop of a sentence.

He answered with a small and humourless smile of his own, but opened his hand to catch her fingers, then stared at their joined hands sitting on the tabletop. The sight of him holding hands with someone in public was surreal to him, and though it did help to corroborate their identities as husband and wife, Sherlock knew that this had nothing to do with perpetuating that deception. As unprecedented and unlikely as it was, it was also truthful.

Later, in a subdued but heavy silence they picked at their preset dinners of hot salt beef with Chantenay carrots and herb dumplings, and though Sherlock could tell by their fellow passengers' sounds of enjoyment that it was apparently palatable, he found himself barely able to taste it himself. His usually ravenous post-case appetite that had appeared that morning was now distinctly absent, and though he halfheartedly pushed his food around the plate, it was only because sitting with his hands resting idly on the tabletop was bound to draw unwanted attention from other diners.

His eyes darted up to meet hers every several seconds, expecting her to initiate some sort of conversation, since she had mostly directed their communication in the past, whether it was in the form of a barrage of texts or, more recently, the way she had confronted him the previous night on the cargo deck. In terms of their conversation she _was_ the more dominant and proficient one (she would lunge and he would parry), and it was something he deeply appreciated in her. She could draw him out and tease him, so that it was a very witty, challenging and stimulating exchange, not just a recitation on his part as he pointed out the obvious and everyone else listened. He did enjoy showing off, yes, but at a certain point the delivery itself tended to become a bit dull and repetitive. (To be fair, it wasn't really that way with John either, but neither was it quite _so_ evocative, nor was it edged with the undercurrent of sexual tension). With Irene he could have true dialogue, but she had always been the instigator.

So tonight he had anticipated that she would make wittily layered, ironic banter as her "Erin Sigerson" persona, and that she'd either make oblique or disguised allusions to what they had experienced using clever metaphor, whilst also weaving in sexual innuendo. Instead, she seemed uncharacteristically listless and serious, and flicking his eyes down to her plate, he saw that she had barely touched her meal, either.

For perhaps only the second or third time in his life, when met with the all-too-familiar scenario of an uneasy interpersonal situation, he felt himself wanting and willing to take personal action to ameliorate it—rather than simply ignoring it or exploiting it to serve his own agenda. Because he _did_ thoroughly relish talking with her, and of the two things he most enjoyed doing with her, that he found most stimulating and exhilarating, _this_ they could do in public. . .

His eyes remained downcast as he wracked his mind trying to think of something that would leaven her grave expression, but he wasn't skilled like her in this way, at least not when vulnerable as himself rather than operating under an alias, which granted him the privilege of distance and emotional apathy.

Now that the sentiment _was_ heartfelt and sincere he faltered, and the prospect of speaking to her as Sigerson was no consolation to him after all. Sigerson's relationship to the woman across the table was far too similar to Sherlock's own, and didn't provide him with any respite. And so rather than being able to seamlessly broach conversation as he might have if he'd felt indifferent towards her, everything he considered sounded appallingly contrived or trite.

For possible insight, he looked to his left to observe the couple beside him from the corner of his eyes, noticing at once that their easy and companionably dynamic was predicated on their very long-term relationship. A small frown dented his brow and tightened his lips as he scanned them in one quick but thorough sweep. ( _Married for at least forty years_ , e _vident from a dozen indicators, ranging from their very worn matching wedding bands to the way his tie was knotted, her eyeglasses, and their teeth [artificial]_ ).

As with his and Irene's relationship, the woman directed the conversation, and so it offered him no guidance into how to approach her now, but that was where the similarities ended. The husband readily agreed with all of his wife's remarks (ranging from the quality of the meat to the loveliness that had been the sunset to the complaint that cargo ships didn't have stabilisers as cruiseliners did, and so it was taking her more time to get over her nausea), with a genial and easygoing patience, seeming content to simply be in her presence, his eyes shining with gentle affection.

A week ago Sherlock would have scoffed derisively, pitying and writing off the man for his small little life, for being so simple as to actually take pleasure from his wife's mundane and tedious running commentary, but now he found himself transfixed. His parents had hardly been paragons of loving commitment (well his _father_ certainly hadn't been, whereas his mother had actually been afflicted with precisely the opposite problem: she'd cared far too much for the man, to her great detriment), and his work rarely exposed him to the healthiest or most successful of relationships, to put it mildly.

And now something he'd have previously dismissed as so banal was suddenly strangely riveting, and he experienced a somewhat familiar flash of envy, although was a slightly different sort of ache than he'd had when he'd wished he could be ordinary so that he could experience romantic attachment as others could. He had dispensed with that particular folly because individually they were anything but, and yet they had still managed to come together and become something even greater than the sum of their individual parts.

 _Too_ great, perhaps, because what they shared was intense and incendiary; a once-in-a-lifetime passion which would spark up, blaze, and then flare out, too brilliant and dazzling to be sustainable. It could never be the long, steady low burn of lifelong commitment. . .

He had learned a great number of things in the past few days—his learning curve was so vertical it was practically positively-skewed. One particular epiphany was that just as he knew that there were a variety of sexual intercourse types, he now understood that there were equally as many or more 'phenotypes' of love and sentiment, even just within _eros_ love alone (as opposed to _philos_ or _agape_ love).

And while he would always fiercely guard his experience with one narrow type amongst the large sample (when he'd never thought he'd want, let alone have, even that), he also understood that the vast majority of types were still entirely closed to him, and would always remain so.

He would never have the cozily companionable shared life the couple next to him enjoyed, at least not with Irene. And if not with _The_ Woman, then not in any romantic terms at all, he knew. He could perhaps envision such a future with John in the _philos_ context, which was maybe just as incredible because he'd never had such friendship before, but that would only happen if John didn't find such comfortable long-term romance himself. It's what his flatmate thought he wanted, after all (although Sherlock had his doubts about the actual validity of that).

Sherlock suddenly became aware that he had been staring for too long, and when he cut his eyes back to Irene, she was observing him with a perceptive expression on her face. This time though, her look wasn't a deconstructing one, but was empathetic.

Their eyes remained fixed to one another's, their shared gaze strengthening until it was forged as if in platinum, and he was on the verge of suggesting that they call off this attempt/experiment as a bad job and have a go at the metaphorical version instead. Because while his appetite for food was negligent, he _was_ becoming increasingly consumed with lust as they sat so close to each other, not actually touching but locked in a kind of embrace nonetheless.

Apparently she was of a like mind, because he felt her unshod foot press against his ankle, then boldly drag up the interior of his calf and past his knee. He felt his breathing deepen immediately, and he must have correspondingly flushed, because she gave him a slow, sinful smile, one eyebrow quirked up. It was a very welcome change of expression from the restrained, introspective look she had worn all throughout dinner, and he felt himself immediately responding to it, beginning to warm in places that had grown chill during their tense meal.

He was about to clamp his knees shut to trap her leg before her foot could probe further, and demand they return to the room to finish in private what she had started, when the older woman to Sherlock's left leaned in conspiratorially, invading his personal space.

"Newlyweds, are you?" she asked, and Sherlock realised that both she and her husband were turned towards him and Irene, smiling knowingly and expectantly. The woman apparently took their slightly startled, raised eyebrows as confirmation, because she continued as if in explanation, "You have a glow." She turned to her husband, "Don't they?"

"They do, love, they definitely do," her husband agreed good-naturedly, apparently happy to back her up.

Sherlock was annoyed by the presumptuous interruption and mentally sneered at the term 'glow,' but also privately conceded that she was perhaps somewhat perceptive. He supposed this was the closest approximation to a honeymoon he would ever experience, and she must have based her observation on _some_ thing.

"So how long is it you've you been married then, pets?" the woman pressed, turning her body to face them fully, as if settling in for a long conversation.

Now he stiffened, her question having resonated far too close to his recent, angst-ridden thoughts for his comfort.

Fortunately Irene was quick to cover for him, and she grabbed his hand again, holding it a little too tightly herself. "Since the day before yesterday," she answered in what sounded like breathy jubilation, but he could tell that she, too, felt strained.

Fortunately neither seemed to be paying attention; both had _aaah_ ed at her words.

"And so that's why we haven't seen them until just now," the older woman pointed out teasingly, exchanging a sly look with her husband. "We were just like that at the beginning too, weren't we?"

The man smiled fondly, and then said, "Right you are, love."

Irene (" _Erin_ ") beamed convincingly, but he could barely manage a smirk, and he was regretting his choice of seats now. For some reason he felt acutely unsettled, for reasons beyond the disruption. He took a mental step back to pinpoint the source of the feeling, and he realised that it was at least partly that he didn't care for how now he and Irene were holding hands as a way to actively perpetuate the lie. Using that specific act in such a way felt like a trespass, like it cheapened what _was_ real—the small share of genuine sentiment he was able to experience.

He slowly extricated his hand from hers under the guise of reaching for his glass of water, but he saw her eyebrows briefly draw together, although they quickly smoothed again, and he doubted the other couple would have noticed.

As they made their way back to the room just ten minutes later, having made a somewhat graceful escape thanks to Irene's smooth wit, she fitted her arms through his and slowed his half eager, half agitated pace. Her contact was grounding, and he felt some of the tension (that had started to build throughout dinner and then further re-accumulate during their forced social interaction) abate, though not entirely.

"Do you think that that could be _us_ in forty years, darling?" she asked as they approached their door. Her voice was light and playfully sarcastic and he understood that she was still (mostly. . .) in character, although her eyes continued not to match her tone.

To his surprise the question didn't alarm him, not really, even if he took it seriously. Perhaps because it was simply so outlandish in light of their very imminent separation—and because of just who they were, and the type of relationship of which they were capable. And that awareness inspired an altogether different reaction in him: something bittersweet and difficult to define.

He wasn't ready to confront the reality of their parting just yet though, so instead he replied to her in kind, smirking, "As if you could ever get me to agree with everything you said."

He tossed a wry look over his shoulder at her, and when she saw his sardonic expression she answered with another smile of her own, which quickly replaced the flash of something else he had first glimpsed on her face. Something that corresponded with how he felt himself.

He faced forward again to unlock the cabin door and they slid into the unlit room, and when she closed the door the darkness intensified so that only the silver moonlight that filtered through the small window outlined the furniture and each of them. Her hand reached for the lightswitch but then paused and dropped without pressing it, and instead she moved towards him.

"True. . ." she agreed slowly as if thoughtfully. "But then, I wouldn't want you to. How _very_ dull."

The tenuous and rather affected humour on their faces faded into solemn seriousness as the eye contact lengthened and became electrified, just as it had in the mess hall before they had been interrupted.

They would not be interrupted now.

All at once they reached for each other, coming together in a desperate, needful embrace. Top layers were unbuttoned, unzipped, and peeled away roughly without ceremony or care, followed by Sherlock clawing uselessly at Irene's bra clasp, momentarily forgetting the mechanism of its release in his haste and want, and failing once, twice, three times to unfasten it, swearing in increasingly greater agitation each time, before she pulled the material roughly over her head herself, then crashed back into him again.

After an entire day of leisurely, protracted touching, extended teasing, and sensuous, tender exploration of each other's bodies, it seemed that neither of them had patience for any additional foreplay. And after his complicated and rather intense thoughts at dinner, which had been followed by their searing, sustained eye contact, he wanted her _now_ —partially because he needed to burn away the pain of those thoughts and make himself forget (at least for a short while), and partially because he could not bear to be apart from her for another minute, another _second_ , longer.

He needed that intimacy and closeness with her more desperately than he had thus far in their relationship, even more than the previous night when they used their bodies to reiterate everything that they had said to one another, and even more than the night before that: their first time.

That had been a powerful physical impulse, underwritten by the emotions that had brought him to Pakistan, but now the need driving him was almost purely emotional, and just so happened to manifest physically (it was, after all, _eros_ love he felt). But even though the physical was practically incidental, it was acutely compelling nonetheless. The closest approximation to it was the sensation of withdrawal from stimulants: actual bodily discomfort and emotional anxiety combining to make him frantic and single-minded in his need.

And so as soon as he kicked off his own underwear and almost tore her expensive new lingerie in his haste to strip it off of her, he pinned her against the mattress and entered her hard, and at the forceful contact they sharply let out the gusts of air that apparently they'd both been holding. For him, it was also a sigh of profound relief, although this was so much more than the equivalent of a 'hit.'

Still, his desperation was far from assuaged, and without any pause or prelude he immediately established a relentless rhythm above her, as if his present passion could compensate for the future, when they would be deprived of each other.

She grasped his arms tightly as they moved together, her eyes wide and smoldering and piercing his as if she could see the entirety of his being, and was wholly fascinated with and intoxicated by what she saw. He knew she was witnessing him come undone again, naked not just in the literal sense, but also in his open admiration and awe of her. It was a bespoke vulnerability, customised for her alone, and he knew that she was aware of that, and that she found it empowering. He was glad; he wanted to give that part of himself to her, and he eagerly accepted it when she offered him her bare, essential self, knowing that it was equally tailored for him as well.

No one else would ever see them like this, but it was more than enough that they could. They were magnificent.

Growling out a low moan, he yanked her legs forward to pull them tighter around his waist and then reached between their flushed and surging bodies, his roughness matching the fierce intensity that burned within him for her and the bitterness of knowing that this was their last time together. Over the course of the day he had acquired tremendous and in-depth knowledge of her body, and he now knew what _she_ liked. Watching her hungrily, his eyes aflame, he pressed the pad of his thumb against her in a continuous anti-clockwise circuit, prompting her to toss her head back with a long, shaky sigh, and clench her thighs around him.

Yet even while he surrendered to his most primal and base urges, a small but somehow still-cognisant part of his mind was whirring at full speed, looking for a way to defer their parting so it didn't actually have to be their 'last time together.'

 _I could go with her to Piraeus, at least_ , he thought desperately, rationalising: _It would only add a few additional days to my itinerary. . ._

He looked down into her ardent, focused face, and something in his chest twinged excruciatingly at the fact that he was scheduled to leave her in just a few hours.

 _Too soon_ , he thought in furious objection, as he roughly palmed first one breast and then the other with his free hand. He had only just come to full terms with his sentiment and he wasn't willing to so readily abandon it. Perhaps their relationship wasn't destined to endure for life or even close to such a stretch, but it certainly hadn't burnt out yet. Quite the opposite: it still blazed white-hot, and he couldn't imagine having the self-discipline or restraint to turn his back on that ( _on this_ ) so prematurely.

He leaned forward with a guttural groan and pushed his mouth haphazardly into hers, overcome with the need to cover every part of her. . . to possess her completely, and offer himself up for her ownership in return. It wasn't enough to connect with her physically, he was seized by the desire to join with her in every sense: crawl inside her and perceive with her mind, see through her eyes, feel with her skin. . . for them to merge so closely with one another that they became one whole for at least a short time, so that when he did have to leave her, traces of one would continue to remain in the other. It would be a much rawer and more immediate way than her elegantly composed room in his mind palace, and right now, raw and immediate deeply appealed to him.

But. _Did_ he have to go just yet?

John was set to return from ( _what was it?_ ) some type of family function the night after Sherlock returned, but surely Sherlock could come up with some pretense—fabricate some case in. . . _wherever, I'll fill in the details later,_ he thought feverishly, momentarily pulled back into the physical when Irene planted her heels on the bed and started lifting her hips up to meet his thrusts. The fierce, possessive look on her face told him that in a sense, their hearts and minds _had_ converged; that she was thinking and feeling all the same painful things as he.

It took him several minutes before he could regain enough coherency to continue evaluating the possibility of continuing on with her for longer.

 _It's not unprecedented_ , Sherlock justified to himself. After all, he had traveled to Minsk, Belarus the previous year for several days to determine if a case involving an Englishman named Mr. Bewick were worth his while. It transpired that it hadn't been, but he knew that _this_ certainly would be.

He pressed his face into her shoulder and squeezed his eyes shut tightly, inhaling her scent and feeling dizzy from the fragrance, from the pleasure coiling inside him, from the savage intensity of his feelings for her, from his dilemma. . .

" _Fuck_ ," he slightly lifted his head to pant harshly against the underside of her jaw, his hair plastering to the side of his face, and she affirmed back, " _Yes_ ," sounding breathless and tense herself as he hauled himself up on his palms and locked his elbows on either side of her face.

Arms trembling with effort, he dropped his head forward just as she tilted her chin up to meet his lips, answering his urgency in equal measure.

How was it fair, he castigated bitterly as their mouths met and melded together, to find the one woman who understood him, with whom he could truly be himself, who showed him everything that he'd never known he could be capable of needing, and gave him all of that and more, who made him a better and stronger person, just to so quickly lose her. The one woman who mattered. . .

 _No_ , he asserted defiantly, rejecting his indulgent self-pity (a trait he utterly loathed in general, and in himself in particular) in favour of decisive action. He _would_ go to Piraeus. If their circumstances dictated that they could never see one another again, at least they would have more than two full days together. _I can manage that_ , he asserted insistently. _It doesn't have to jeopardise the plan in any way._

And then, feeling the calming satisfaction that came with deciding on a specific course of action, he turned the power of his full focus onto her once more.

They had become so entwined in one another that it was as though the boundaries of his body and hers blurred and dissipated, and even as the scope of his focus narrowed, it also deepened, and he felt as though his desperate desire to unite completely with her had been fulfilled. He felt attuned to her in every way: he could read every sensation she was experiencing in the tension of her stomach and the tremble in her limbs, and he could understand every shade of emotion she felt by the look in her eye, the crease in her brow, and the curve of her lips. And he knew that she could do the same.

So even while the reality of their impending separation (whether it was that night or in a week's time) hung over him like the sword of Damocles, he was filled with a sensation of joy at the incredible intimacy of the moment, and it was euphoria unlike anything he had felt before. It wasn't tied to a sense of accomplishment or satisfaction as the elation and glee he derived from his work were; it was far simpler and purer than that. It was a deep validation of his essential self as revealed to Irene, absorbed and filtered by her, and then projected back to him as a very flattering version of himself. It was a man that he could feel proud to be in his entirety.

Sherlock was perfectly aware that he frequently came across as insufferable and arrogant to his colleagues and flatmate, and while much of it was certainly genuine, derived from his unassailable confidence in his intellect, it was also partially a crafted persona. He was a man of great contradiction: one part of him engaged with his surroundings and the world more deeply and thoroughly than anyone else (anywhere, ever) and was excessively self-assured, while the other part of him completely abstained from certain facets of life and experience. Yes, he justified it by asserting that such interactions were distracting and 'bad for brainwork,' and that was undoubtedly true to an extent, but there was more to it than just that.

Everything he had ever witnessed or personally experienced growing up had taught him that sentiment and attachment made one vulnerable, and his own differences only served to cruelly underscore that perception. So during his late adolescence and into early adulthood he had systematically weaned himself off of his desire to connect with others and had limited socialisation to instances when his work called for it (and he could hide behind a created identity, so that it wasn't _really_ he, Sherlock Holmes, speaking the words). He didn't actively enjoy keeping other people at arm's length, but neither did it compromise his work or himself. It was just his lot, and he had accepted that.

Or so he had thought.

Yet in the past few days he had made himself completely vulnerable to Irene Adler, had torn down each one of his carefully constructed and repeatedly reinforced walls to bare the whole of his heart to her. And though he had struggled at every juncture—fighting to uphold each subsequent barrier out of his fear—he was now experiencing the astonishingly worthwhile reward that came after all that hardship.

And in the wake of feeling that, he wasn't sure that he was interested in returning to the way he had lived before—in fortifying himself quite so securely again. He sensed something within him shifting and transforming, and he didn't feel quite as determined to so hermetically seal that part of himself off from the world, even after they were parted. Because perhaps with sentiment, sometimes the pain wasn't from losing, but from growing and gaining. . .

He slowly reemerged from his awed thoughts to the slick slide of skin against skin that was stimulating his every nerve ending, and sought out the anchoring bond of her gaze to pull him firmly back into the highly erotic moment. He lifted his face and held it just over hers, pausing only to gently brush the tips of their noses in a gesture that made his heart swell with a tenderness that mingled potently with their passion, and then looking into her eyes. He noticed that she was watching him with unguarded warmth and something that almost looked like reverence, and he knew instinctively that his flushed expression broadcasted the same emotions to her.

Her mouth bent into a faint smile, and she lightly grazed her fingertips along his collarbone then down his arms, teasing him with the barest whisper of a touch. Shivering even though his flesh was suffused with heat, he whimpered huskily and his eyes fluttered closed. When he wrenched them open again a moment later, her smile had widened and become mischievous, and he ducked forward and thoroughly kissed it from her lips as he tangled his fingers through the waves along her hairline.

The desperate, forceful desire that had previously pounded through his veins had given way to more sensual, tender passion as they had found in each other what he'd so vitally needed, although he could sense another type of urgency building within him, quickening and coarsening his movements.

He noticed the physiological signs of approaching climax in her too, and he felt his expression darken with prurient intent. Being able to coax and manipulate her towards her peak was incredibly erotic to him, since it allowed him to blend his sharp perceptiveness and acumen with his sexuality, and it also perfectly represented the complex balance of their power dynamic. But ultimately he valued this component of their intimacy because he couldn't imagine finishing unless both of them found release; anything less would be contrary to their entire relationship as corresponding counterparts, as equals.

Muttering low and breathlessly into her ear (he had developed quite a taste for understated lewdness in the right moment), he was gratified to see a flush rise up along her chest, shoulders, and cheeks, and her pupils dilate even further. He was confident that she had ever blushed in the course of her work, no matter how extreme the scenario or kink, but a few carefully selected racy words from him seemed to have quite an affect on her. He followed through on his words with the actions he had promised, and she suddenly shuddered against him, her breathing becoming harsh and erratic.

He eyed her almost ferally, taking in the jumping pulse at her throat, the beads of perspiration on her forehead and between her breasts, and the tension in her thighs, and then picked up his pace, canting his hips in such a way that he could reach the part of her that had proven most sensitive, single-minded in his determination.

Her hands flew up to cup the back of his head and she threaded her fingers tightly in his hair and stared up at him with pleasure-glazed eyes and red, parted lips. Then with a breathy moan she pulled his face down to press her mouth and nose into the side of his throat, and though it broke their eye contact, he could still read the progression of her arousal in the body that was pressed against him and all around him, and in the hot, irregular breaths that gusted out against his own febrile skin.

She seemed to hover right at the threshold of rapture for an endless, interminable moment, her fingertips digging increasingly more sharply into the back of his neck. But then she froze and tautened like a bow, and he watched her face with smoldering concentration, deriving almost as much satisfaction from witnessing the pleasure coursing through her as he would when he experienced his own release.

And then suddenly his outer world shrank just as his inner world amplified. The curious but now-familiar sensation that they had fallen sideways into an alternate reality in which no one existed but themselves returned, and the place where they were joined was the centre of that world. And as everything else faded away, his other senses compensated and heightened, and each one seemed to respond with frenzy to the slightest stimulation. The bedding pressing into his palms and knees felt like another caress, the sound of their sighs was practically pornographic, and the scent in the room was an aphrodisiac. He raked narrowed eyes across her body, and the intensity of his attraction to her made his state of unabating arousal almost physically painful.

He let out a low whine of desperation, but it wasn't until tore his eyes away from her breasts and looked into her face, where he found the heat of her impassioned gaze on him, that he felt the pleasure finally break and stream through his body in indescribably glorious, pulsing waves. Their shared look had caught, held, and swelled, and it was the deep emotional and intellectual bond signified by that eye contact that had ultimately pushed him over the edge.

He fought against the compulsion to squeeze his lids together and concentrate on the physical ecstasy pounding inexorably through him, and instead he immersed himself in her expression, etching it into his permanent recall. His wide eyes darted frenetically as he noted everything he could, knowing that it was his very last chance, and in his absorption and stress he brutally caught his lower lip up in between his teeth.

But he couldn't feel any pain, at least not yet. Even as the final aftershocks of pleasure faded away, he remained focused on binding her face and the feeling of this physical bliss together in his memory, so that he would never think of one without also evoking the other, at least in some small part. It would be a consolation when they each retired to their own corners of the world again, returning to their lives of status quo detachment.

No, he didn't presently feel any pain, but he knew that it would come soon enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "The wonderful thing about falling in love is you start to see yourself through their eyes. And it brings out the best in you. It's almost as if you're falling in love with yourself." (Playing by Heart, 1998)
> 
> Thank you for reading, and comments are sincerely loved!


	22. Whatever Begins, Also Ends

Panting and slick with perspiration, he dropped himself onto her flushed body in exhaustion, their previous ardour now settling into tenderness so that their kisses, so passionate and aggressive only a minutes before, became sweet, lingering, and softly pliant. And even though he knew that he was surely too heavy for her to bear his full weight for long, he couldn't bring himself to move. Moving would break their connection and end this, and he wasn't yet ready to accept that it was over between them.

 _But it is_ , he knew, feeling desolate in the face of that acknowledgment. His reckless and half-baked mid-coitus plot to accompany her to Greece was so very tempting of course, but entirely impossible, he grasped now. The fact was, he simply could not give John the slightest reason to suspect anything, if (or rather, _when,_ if Sherlock knew his brother) Mycroft covertly gauged John's knowledge on the matter by assessing John's reactions, under the guise of 'informing him of the situation.'

Just the faintest flicker of question or uncertainty from John (in case he recalled Sherlock's unexpected absence during the window of time Mycroft might mention) could be the reasonable doubt for which his brother was on guard. Sherlock could simply _not_ risk Irene's future for the sake a few more days of deferred reality, as desperately as he may want it. No, he had to arrive home before John, so that his flatmate would never be aware of his absence at all. It was imperative.

Still, no matter what happened in the future, he would always jealously hold onto the knowledge that somewhere there was a woman who truly knew him, and whom he truly knew in turn. The brevity of their time together did nothing to detract from his certainly of that, and he suspected that as she made her way in the world as Erin Sigerson, she might recall him in the same way.

She certainly seemed to be feeling similarly now, but for her part, she didn't ask him to stay either. Instead, her arms continued to hold him tightly against her and prolong the present moment itself, and her fingernails dug uncomfortably into his shoulder blades, though he welcomed the sharp sensation, and tightened his own hold on her. He could feel their heartbeats galloping out of time with each other's, and for neither of them were the rates slowing.

It was only when her breathing became shallow and difficult that he reluctantly rolled onto the mattress, but he shifted her with him, so that she was half pulled onto his chest, her hair splayed across his arms and shoulders, tousled and untamed.

They remained there in silence, wrapped up in one another yet each lost in the privacy of his or her own thoughts. They didn't speak of what they had shared in the previous few days, or of the future, or about what they meant to each other. It would have been extraneous anyway, Sherlock knew; there was nothing else they could add to what had already been expressed in word, action, or physical intimacy.

Instead, with a steady and penetrating look into her bright eyes, he laced his fingers through hers, covering the back of her hand with his palm, and the single act eloquently summarised it all.

As he continued to peer down at her Sherlock felt something immense, something terrible, looming over him, colouring the moment with dread, but he abruptly shoved it away and sublimated his every cognitive thought into the effort of absorbing the tactile feel of her.

He wasn't certain how long they had remained like that but she was the one who finally broke the connection, wordlessly sliding her hand from under his and peeling herself from his body, her expression regretful but also filled with a new resolve.

Sherlock stared at the bathroom door long after she had gently closed it between them and the sound of the shower had started, and even though he knew she was just in the next room, he felt abruptly and utterly lonely in a way that he never had before.

That feeling seemed to trigger the much larger and overwhelming sensation that he had felt before, and now it yawned like an abyss before him, threatening devastation.

Scowling, he violently kicked his feet free of the tangled sheets and threw himself off the bed, then deliberately occupied himself with all the trivia of preparations needed for his departure so as to ignore that looming darkness. He packed up all his belongings and then zipped his suitcase decisively, leaving out only his toiletries and a fresh white-on-white striped shirt and black suit, which he lay out carefully across the writing table. Then, without permitting himself a pause, he began to carefully review all his travel documents, ensuring that his counterfeit passport, Sigerson's Visa card, and the print-out of his flight and boarding information were accounted for and in order.

Though he continued to keep himself engaged, he couldn't help but note that she was taking an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom, even after the water had ceased. And when he heard the steady noise of a hairdryer he found himself wondering if she were styling her hair into its rigid and complex knots once more, symbolic of the reestablishment of her personal barriers. The thought filled him with a sense of foreign and unwanted melancholy, one he had only felt once before in his life, in the days following Christmas Eve. He shook his head in irritation, culling it from his mind, and focused on counting and organising his remaining rupee bills, his lips pursed and his brow furrowed.

Nevertheless, when she finally did emerge his head lifted at once, and he saw that instead of having been fashioned into an elaborate updo, her hair had been blow-dried sleekly straight. It was still polished and much less uninhibited than her mane of waves, but wasn't as sophisticated or severe as her former hairstyle, and the sight filled him with mixed and ambiguous feelings. She caught his appraising look and instantly understood.

"As you said, no more Irene Adler. . ." she murmured, breaking the protracted silence and smiling serenely, albeit rather sadly.

Sherlock nodded, but when the moment grew heavy between them, the bitterness edged out the bemusement in the balance of his emotions, and he suddenly felt as if all the oxygen had been sucked out from the room.

Only three quarters of an hour previously he had been left alone and despondent when she had broken away from his embrace to shower, but he now completely understood what she might have been feeling. He was seized by an immediate impulse to escape from the blue eyes that mirrored back all that he was feeling himself ( _too much, can't...)_ , and without a word he collected his clothes and shower items, and moved around her into the refuge of the now-vacant bathroom.

Once there he turned on the tap, checked the water temperature, and stepped into the small stall, then took his time to methodically wash and condition his hair, lather and carefully shave his face, brush his teeth, and scrub his body, all with single-minded concentration. He had always found the repetitive and meditative qualities of his personal hygiene rituals somewhat soothing, and now focusing on going through the motions also helped him to ignore the sharp ache growing in his chest.

But after the surprisingly hot and strong spray sloughed away the last of the soap, and it came time for him to shut off the tap and step out, he found that he was unable to move. He remained fixed under the steaming water, and without the distraction of his ablutions he felt as if something within him—some resolve or strength—had finally broken, and that he was immensely fragile. To make matters worse, the most recent words she had spoken to him reverberated in his mind, and he slumped forward, his hands bracing against the tiles just in time to catch his weight. He locked his elbows as he dropped his chin to his chest with a moan, and his ragged breathing echoed loudly around him.

" _No more Irene Adler."_

As the water continued to thunder down he felt his lips suddenly pull away from his teeth in an involuntary grimace and his throat tighten up painfully, but with immense effort he fought against the onslaught of bitterness.

He resisted not just out of his habit of repressing unpleasant emotions, but also out of real fear. The sensations of dread and loss were formidable and his determination to leave her was weak, and if he lost himself in the negative feelings, he would never be strong enough to take that first step down the gangway in Oman and away from her.

And yet the potential consequences he had already outlined to himself made that an impossibility. . . Taking such a foolish risk for the sake of indulging his sentiment could very possibly shift the balance between he and his brother (potentially literally putting him— _them_ —on the 'losing side'), and jeopardising her life was too sleep a price to pay.

But somehow, that awareness did absolutely nothing to mitigate the wretchedness he was feeling.

 _Ten minutes,_ a somehow still-intact portion of his mind suggested, interrupting his angst-ridden thoughts in a tone of resigned tolerance. _Just ten minutes._ It sounded like Mycroft.

 _Yes, yes, that could work_ , Sherlock thought desperately. Wholesale suppression wouldn't hold up, he understood. The emotions were just too intense, and if he tried that tactic he might break at a critical moment, back in London with John (God knew it would be hard enough to keep all of this from him, as it was). And if he were unwilling to risk potential exposure for an entire additional week with TheWoman, he certainly wasn't willing to blow it over a lack of emotional control. So yes, he could allow himself to feel that ache, to feel heartbroken—if only for just a little while. If only for ten minutes. . .

He leaned more heavily against his arms as they bracketed against the tiles, his mouth pressed into a hard line as his breath gusted through flared nostrils, and his chest heaved. His compromise soothed some of his previous agitation, but that emotion was immediately replaced by another feeling, which was much darker and more profound.

The shower continued its unremitting gush, surrounding him in nothing but steaming vapour, water, and the sound of the stream striking loudly against every surface, and he felt as though he could have been anywhere, could have been locked inside a hyperbaric chamber. The feeling of isolation and sensory limitation gave him the impression of total privacy, and that seemed to break the last vestiges of control he had on his emotions, so that they burst forth as powerfully and inexorably as the pounding shower spray, and his forehead fell even further forward to press into his straining bicep.

In his mind's eye he saw the flash of her clever blue eyes darting playfully over to his as she made some witty remark, and a bubble of frustrated longing seemed to form and grow in his chest and choke its way upward, forcing itself through his lips as a low and unsteady exhale.

He blindly swayed backwards on his feet and dug the heels of his palms hard into his eye sockets, and the image morphed into one of her face, her eyes almost black with desire and focused only on him, her chin tilted back, and her hair strewn across the pillow.

His eyes screwed up tighter and his grimace twisted further, and the ache within him intensified until it burned. But he savagely embraced it, and let the painful throbbing well up inside him—let himself wallow entirely in it so that he could experience every nuance of his misery until he felt as if he were suffocating with it. It very briefly occurred to him that perhaps if he could understand it, he could catalog it, and eventually contain it, but at once he knew that that was a lie. His need to feel the full weight of his distress wasn't in the least bit rational. It was something deep and primal.

Besides, it was like probing into an open wound. Any insights he might have gained were seared away by the all-encompassing, brutal pain within him, and his head dropped back so that it hit the tiles behind him with a hard thud, while his mouth fell open and gasped noisily for oxygen.

His hands swung out behind him to hold him upright against the wall, and he felt that well of distress and the ancillary noise build in his chest again. But rather than pressing a fist against his lips to stifle it, he let out the low, choked noise, which shuddered into another a moment later, interspersed only by heaving, borderline hyperventilating breaths.

But still he didn't shy away from the intensity of the meltdown, and he even mercilessly conjured up additional memories to further sharpen his suffering, now thinking of the times when their hands had entwined together, and the simple but incredible intimacy of that: at Baker Street, at the cargo deck railing, in public at dinner, and while their entire bodies, not just their hands, were joined. _I'll never feel that with anyone again_ , he thought with utterly ruthless masochism, as shuddering spasms continued to wrack through him. _I'll never_ have _that again._

He couldn't tell if there were tears in his eyes—everything in the cramped stall was soaked—but his throat continued to constrict tightly, and though he swallowed convulsively several times, the painful pressure didn't ease. A part of his mind that felt separate from himself thought that even the body understood that sentiment could be very dangerous thing; this discomfort was its warning sign and distress signal. Yet still he welcomed the sensation, perversely luxuriating in his misery and the raw, flayed feeling that was the manifestation of the other side of (what he thought might be) love: loss.

 _Has it been worth it?_ Sherlock questioned himself. He had knowingly exposed himself to this pain, had understood that if he opened himself up to his sentiments and experienced the gratification and contentedness they evoked, that (just as with Newton's Third Law of Motion) there would be an equal and opposite reaction when things inevitably ended. But he had conscientiously chosen to experience life as she did, and postpone potential consequences in favour of momentary pleasure. Had he been a complete idiot to do so?

 _The answer will become clearer with greater distance, and time to determine how this will actually manifest in my daily life,_ he thought. Or to put it more prosaically: 'Only time would tell.' But even in the moment, although he felt bitterly resentful of their unalterable circumstances, he was inclined to believe, _Yes. Yes it was worth it. Completely._

And with that, the bout subsided. The trembling in his limbs slowed then practically abated, and he imagined the last of his angst and uncertainty swirling down the drain of the shower along with the increasingly cooler water. It was similar to the visualisation trick he employed to delete items from his permanent memory, and although he knew that (unfortunately) emotions didn't function in quite the same way as neutral facts, and it wasn't a permanent solution, it seemed to work as a stop-gap at least. The hard, pounding misery that had coursed through him had left him wrung-out and exhausted, but it was now replaced by a calm ( _numb_ ) acceptance. Overall, he felt heavy and empty, and as he shut off the water, stepped out into the bathroom, and toweled himself off, he was also aware that he felt strangely separate from reality, as if someone else were going through the physical motions for him.

After he pulled on his shirt several minutes later, he not only literally buttoned himself up, but also took the moment to do so emotionally, conscientiously reining in the feelings that went along with the separation. He had allowed himself time to grieve for what was finished and what could never be, but that period of indulgence was over, and it was of the utmost importance that he maintain dominance over his emotions. From now, onward—permanently.

Now dressed and (at least superficially) composed, he reached for the door handle, his eyes steely.

When he reentered the bedroom, his face was impassive and his expression didn't betray the slightest hint of the crisis that had transpired in the shower, except for perhaps a faint flush along his cheekbones that could be explained the heat of the water, and a slight redness rimming his eyes.

But even if they had been entirely bloodshot, Irene might not have noticed, because now _she_ was busying herself about the room, moving swiftly and purposefully from one point to another, studiously looking everywhere but at him. She certainly didn't comment at how much time he had taken, and he wondered if she didn't need to question it because she had done the same thing herself. His eyes tracked her as she made her way around the cabin, searching her face for any sign that she had also fallen apart in the privacy of the shower, but apparently she had also used his time in the bathroom to reconstruct her careful facade, because once more he couldn't tell a thing.

It was a relief in a way, he thought, even as he felt the painful pangs of loss. Her restraint helped him maintain his own, _very_ tenuous, self-control.

When the horn bellowed and the rumble of engines changed pitch a moment later, signaling the approach to their Muscat, Oman berth, Sherlock fastened the two buttons on his suit jacket, then pulled on his coat and tied his scarf, before grabbing the handle of his luggage. When Irene wordlessly passed him his carry-on satchel they made brief eye contact, but then they both looked away, lips pursed.

As they made their way to the disembarkation point, a stilted and awkward quality settled between them that was new and foreign, and the feeling was exacerbated when they reached the gangway, and turned to face each other.

To Sherlock, at least, the moment was loaded with the pressure that things ought to be expressed, and though he was still all too aware of the magnitude of his sentiment and the desire to accompany her at least to Greece, he felt completely unable to verbalise any of it on command and on the spot in such a way. Nor was he willing to risk undoing all the measures he had taken to control his feelings.

But when he checked Irene's expression, he was startled to see that she had lost the confident yet detached expression of her default mask. Instead she was broadcasting uneasiness and uncertainty, and somehow their shared anxiety enabled him to find his voice.

"This has been. . ." He paused, his jaw slightly working as he searched for the appropriate words. "I won't forget it," he finally said.

But then, when he felt the sentiment threatening to well up inside him again, much closer to the surface than he cared for, he briskly continued, "But now you need to establish a life with your new identification, and you certainly can't come to London. It's too dangerous."

A flicker of amusement momentarily replaced her previous expression, and she replied, "I'm quite a hand at disguise, you know; I daresay even better than you, from what I've seen."

"I mean it," Sherlock said firmly, his voice raising, flushing at the thought of her in renewed danger even while he knew she was just teasingly provoking him. "Your safety is paramount."

She looked away with an inscrutable look on her creased brow, but after a moment the familiar twinkle came back into her eye again, and she said blithely: "You could always visit me in America. . . put me back in line when I inevitably misbehave again. . ."

The edges of his lips lifted slightly, but it wasn't exactly a smile; there was no real humor in it. He murmured, "I suppose that a husband should see his wife occasionally," but they both knew that it was merely a humouring pretense—there was a very real possibility that they would never see each other again.

She smiled wanly, then rolled onto her toes to kiss him on the cheek, her hand lifting to cup the other side of his face.

His eyelashes fluttered closed and his heart sped up as her lips pressed against him, but all too soon she pulled away, and then her hand dropped as well. He immediately missed the contact, but swallowed hard, fortifying himself again.

"Until then, Mr. Holmes. . ." she murmured.

He nodded and began to wordlessly, stoically turn away, but then the same rush of clarity and realisation that he had felt on-deck the night before struck him again: the sense that he was witnessing a rare and fleeting moment of opportunity, but that it would expire imminently, un-seized, never to be repeated or re-offered.

And just as he had then allowed his emotions to fuel his desperate lunge forward, to catch her before the chance to accept what she offered him had passed forever, he now twisted back around in an impulse that felt as incontestable as a mandate.

Without even releasing his luggage he wrapped his arms around her and his face practically collided into hers, inelegantly kissing her with all the ferocity and emotion behind the words he couldn't actually say aloud. Yet when he allowed his sentiment to be channeled and expressed through his body rather than processed through his mind, he was just as articulate as he was in all other areas of his life—perhaps even more so. She had stumbled back slightly at first but without thinking he let his bags thud to the deck boards so that he could draw her in even closer, and after the barest pause she answered his passion with a torrent of her own with a low, shaky sound.

His mind went beautifully, blissfully blank as he felt the rightness of this final act resonate through him. It didn't matter how many kisses they had exchanged until that point; they were all in the past. But this, for now, was the present, and he could not conceive of anything that he needed (or could ever need) more than the press of her against him, the heat of her skin under his touch, the firm but pliant suppleness of her lips against his, the sound of her short, shallow breaths. . . He heard himself moan into her mouth and his hand went up to clutch at the back of her head as he tilted his face and deepened the kiss, as if he wanted them to melt into each other and posses part of one another one final time.

Some unknown time later he pulled away from her lips and blindly pressed his mouth along her cheek until his face was nestled into her hair again, and they stood there for another moment, embracing tightly as he inhaled one final breath of her scent. He knew that it was just the shampoo stocked by the ship, and yet the when the fragrance mingled with her own unique body chemistry it was intoxicating to him. Everything else faded away as he focused only on that, and he knew that whenever he detected a whiff of that particular brand of shampoo in the future, he would be fully transported back to this very moment.

Then, when they finally parted for the second time, panting hard, the bittersweet ache he felt welling in his chest was reflected in her slightly strained face and faintly glossy eyes, and his brain was silent except for a strange and very insistent humming.

"Until then," he said, his voice hoarse and raw-sounding despite his efforts to regulate it, and she nodded once, with an air of finality.

And then with enormous effort, clinging to the knowledge that he was making the 'rational' and 'smart' decision (and yet resenting those traits for the first time in his life), he collected his bags, turned around again, and made his down the gangway, and away from The Woman.

* * *

It was only much later, when he was seated on his direct _Oman Air_ flight to Heathrow, that Sherlock came across the scrap of stationary with the cargo ship's letterhead on it. It had been taken from the pad on their cabin's writing desk and then folded into fours and placed in his carry-on.

He unfolded it, read it briefly, refolded it, then tucked it carefully in his jacket pocket and gazed out of the aeroplane window, his eyes unseeing and his lips pursed thoughtfully. But despite his composed demeanor, beneath his fresh, crisp shirt his heart began to pound wildly.

In script as neat and elegant as The Woman herself, the note had simply said, _Thank you for dinner_.


	23. Epilogue

" _The time is 1:06, and you're listening to the BBC World Service with Valerie Sanderson. Here are some of the top stories of the hour._

" _It's being reported today that a terrorist group based in Pakistan has released a video depicting the execution of what appears to be a western hostage. There is currently some speculation that the group responsible is Lashkar e Taiba, but the LeT have yet to comment on the tape or take formal responsibility._

" _The actual identity of the female hostage and the circumstances revolving around her kidnapping are also, as of yet, unclear, although a package allegedly containing possessions belonging to the victim has been anonymously delivered to the district office of the British High Commission, located in Karachi, Pakistan. This has prompted speculation that she was a British National._

" _The High Commission has released a statement saying that it is working with Karachi authorities to determine identity, but in the meantime the government of Pakistan is urging anyone who may have any information to come forward._

" _The LeT have previously taken responsibility for the 2001 attack on India's Parliament, which killed 15 and injured 18, as well as the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, which killed 164 and injured another 308._

" _In_ this _video, the female hostage is depicted kneeling on the ground in front of six militants, while one reads—oh. There is breaking news._

" _It is now being reported that the LeT have_ confirmed _responsibility for this video, and that they have stated that the woman_ is _in fact a British National, although her actual identity remains unconfirmed. Once again, this is breaking news. The terrorist group Lashkar e Taiba has now taken responsibility—"_

With a faintly satisfied expression Sherlock jabbed at the radio's power button and muttered " _Bon Voyage_ , Mycroft," under his breath, before he strode to the window to stare out onto the dark, rain-drenched, and empty London street with unfocused eyes. His mind was turned inward and he was back in Karachi again, back with Irene Adler.

He blindly reached out for his violin and bow, and immediately launched into a dreamy, legato version of the melody he'd begun to compose after Christmas, allowing himself to become fully immersed in recent memories and images.

Then, just as he was drawing out an A# and A with light, fluid strokes, he heard the front door open and close, and by the time he concluded the final phrase's sustained D, familiar footsteps were entering the drawing room.

Without turning from the window or offering any preamble, Sherlock asked, "Did you pick up more coffee?"

He heard the thud of a duffle bag being dropped onto the carpet, and a beat passed as John processed what Sherlock had asked. "Um. . . sorry, what? Did I pick up more coffee from where? Hello, by the way."

"At the shop, obviously," Sherlock said in an impatient tone. "Isn't that where you've just been?" He had to work to keep the amusement out of his voice, and he listened with suppressed mirth as his flatmate's silence transitioned predictably from mute disbelief into resigned acceptance in one short exhalation.

"No. . . No, I've just come from Euston Station," John said. "I was in Northampton, remember? My cousin's wedding."

"Oh," Sherlock said with a bored sigh, but a coy smile played around his lips. "So 'no' on the coffee, then?" He finally faced John and set down the violin and bow with a flourish, a look of idle disappointment on his face.

"No coffee!" John said in a long-suffering but ultimately good-natured tone, stepping around his bag and then falling wearily into the sofa. " _Besides_ the tragic lack of coffee, how are things going here? Anything interesting happen while I was gone? Any new cases?" he picked up one of the many papers strewn about the coffee table and skimmed the cover, then glanced up to check Sherlock's expression. Sherlock just yawned widely, giving every indication that he was incredibly bored, including by their conversation itself.

"Nothing you need to know about," he sighed dismissively, a slight pout on his face.

"Right then," John nodded, opening up the paper, while Sherlock turned back to the window and picked up his instrument again.

This time his reflection revealed a hard, triumphant grin, as he congratulated himself for his performance with John. Life at 221B Baker Street appeared as if it had reverted to business as normal—as if Sherlock had never been gone at all, in fact, which was exactly how he wanted it to seem (how it _must_ seem).

And yet the change within himself was an altogether different matter; that was indelible and, he knew, permanent.

He had previously believed that his solitude and isolation protected him, but she had conclusively convinced him of something that his relationship with John had already started to suggest: that the rewards from opening up to another person could more than compensate for the risk. It was true that he had first come to that conclusion in the heat of passion, but it had remained just as evident during the cold intervening thirty-one hours since. It turned out that in a life spent in one long effort to escape the commonplace of existence, he had discovered something truly exceptional in an experience that was so very commonplace for ordinary people. . .

And even now, with a distance of over 3460 miles between them, he could still keenly feel her presence and influence, and he could detect no reason why that would change or fade in the future. No matter how often she might switch aliases, she would always remain _The Woman_ to him _._

He poised his bow over the violin strings again and as he began to play another melody—one begun in bed on a ship in the Arabian Sea and completed there in Baker Street—the grin faltered, then faded.

"Mm, that's new, isn't it," John commented from the sofa when Sherlock finished several minutes later, oblivious to the younger man's trance-like state. "One of yours?"

Sherlock blinked, then made an aloof, noncommittal noise that his flatmate correctly took as an affirmative, and replaced his violin in its case, but didn't turn from the window. He wasn't ready to let go of his reverie.

He vaguely noticed John nod favourably in the reflection, then ask, "Have you got a name for it?"

Sherlock hesitated, then decided that sharing that small bit of information wouldn't jeopardise anything. And perhaps if he compartmentalised what had happened and shared just one token—and barely one, at that—it would be easier to withhold everything else.

"Saudade," he answered tersely, as he slipped a hand into the pocket of his dressing gown to finger at the gold band that had been dropped there.

If John made any reply to that, Sherlock didn't take notice. He was feeling the pull of recent memory again, and the expression reflecting in the window had become one of fierce longing.

Still, he wouldn't have changed a thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "And as for Irene Adler? Well you say he was beaten by her. But do you know what they got up to in Islamabad, because I do. There was no beating, it was all very loving." -Benedict Cumberbatch at the RadioTimes event in Cheltenham on October 6th, 2012.
> 
> So there you have it - straight from the horse's mouth!
> 
> * * * * * * * * * * * * 
> 
> The title of the previous chapter ("Whatever begins, also ends") is another quote from Seneca.
> 
> * * * * * * * * * * * * 
> 
> Saudade is a word of Portuguese origin that has no direct translation into English:
> 
> "Saudade describes a deep emotional state of nostalgic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves. It often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never return. It's related to the feelings of longing, yearning.
> 
> "Saudade may be felt towards people and things whose whereabouts are unknown, such as a lost lover. It was once described as "the love that remains" after someone is gone. It is the recollection of feelings, experiences, places or events that once brought excitement, pleasure, well-being, which now triggers the senses and makes one live again."
> 
> To hear how I imagine this song to sound, listen to the violin line here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVFZTn8I9rg
> 
> * * * * * * * * * * * * 
> 
> To see the lovely illustrations that various readers have made, please check out these links:  
> \- http://ndilettante.deviantart.com/  
> \- http://dollyribbon.tumblr.com/post/26981120315/neither-a-soldier-nor-a-gentleman-sherlock-irene  
> \- http://kilimiria.deviantart.com/  
> \- http://mllechloe.deviantart.com/  
> To listen to a recording of the BBC broadcast from this chapter, go here (my Tumblr): http://francesca-wayland.tumblr.com/post/32768780880/bbc
> 
> * * * * * * * * * * * * 
> 
> Finally, my heartfelt thanks to everyone who has reviewed, because they've meant everything to me. I also appreciate those who have bookmarked, given kudos, and just to everyone who's taken the time to read this whole thing. It's been so much fun!


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